This paper investigates household decisions when individual utility depends on a consumption reference level. The desire to ``keep up with the Joneses'' represents one such example. The prior literature shows that, in a Ramsey model, consumption externalities have no impact on steady state...

This paper sets up a dynamic general equilibrium model to study how the composition of technical progress affects the asymptotic speed of convergence. The following questions are addressed: Will endogenizing a fraction of the productivity increases as coming from learning by investing help to...

This paper analyzes the impact of positional preferences, exhibiting conspicuous consumption and conspicuous wealth, on optimal consumption- and income taxes, for an endogenous growth model with public capital. Positional preferences raise the endogenous growth rate if the elasticity of...

We propose an evolutionary equation and develop an asymptotic theory that generalize results obtained in Polterovich, Khenkin, 1988. It is shown that, as a result of interaction between innovation and imitation, the shape of the efficiency distribution curve of technologies eventually...

The paper is devoted to investigation of a number of difference-differential equations, among them the following one plays the central role: dFn/dt=φ(Fn)(Fn-1 - Fn) (*) where, for every t, {Fn(t), n = 0, 1, 2, ...} is a probability distribution function, and φ is a positive function on [0, 1]....

This paper studies the evolution of the distribution of firms in the ferrous metals industry by efficiency levels. The proposed model takes into account interaction of processes of creation and adoption of technologies and depreciation of assets. It is shown that the model approximates real data...

We propose a difference-differential equation that reflects interactions between innovation and imitation processes to describe the evolution of the distribution curve of firms by efficiency levels. An explicit solution of this equation is obtained for arbitrary finite initial conditions. It is...

The concepts of absorptive capacity and innovative capability have been introduced to describe abilities of a country to imitate and, accordingly, to create more advanced technologies. In this paper we suggest new indicators of these two abilities. To calculate them, we develop an endogenous...

This paper investigates household decisions, and optimal taxation in an overlapping generations model in which individual utility depends on a weighted average of consumption of ones peers --- a ``keeping up with the Joneses'' consumption externality. In contrast to representative agent...

This paper investigates the effects of (``keeping up with the Joneses'' and ``learning-by-investing'') externalities, when labor productivity decreases with age. Within the framework of a continuous time overlapping generations model, the effects of the consumption externality on the propensity...