Recent empirical studies have revealed a strong impact of tax changes on corporate finance. Yet, models of economic growth usually neglect financial structure of the representative firm. In order to investigate whether the consideration of firm finance modifies the estimated outcome of capital...

The paper presents a model where the interplay between fertility, child labour, and education can explain economic stagnation when parents live in an environment of high child mortality. If in contrast child mortality is low, the solution of the parental decision problem leads to perpetual...

Economists frequently confine themselves to the qualitative analysis of continuous optimization problems or they restrict their quantitative analysis to inaccurate methods like linearization around the steady state. The fact that the solution is characterized by an inherently unstable adjustment...

Human capital accumulation is introduced in a growth model with R\&D-driven expansion in variety and quality of intermediate goods andknowledge spillovers from both research activities. Economic growth is no longer uniquely tied to population growth as previous growth models without scale...

Quantitative aspects of adjustment processes in economic growth remain frequently unsolved or are tackled with bulky or inaccurate methods like multiple shooting or log-linearization. Mulligan's (1991) method of time elimination, however, has improved the analysis of saddle path dynamics in...

We present a non-linear solution method of saddlepoint dynamics in discrete time optimization problems. It is based on the backward attractivity of the stable manifold and is very easy to implement. After an introduction to the general method we present two applications. First we consider the...

This article offers a theory of economic growth, stagnation, and demo-economic transition that originates from external effects of child-bearing, health expenditure, and education under endogenous mortality. Facing a hierarchy of needs, parents always consume and want to have a family. Child...

The paper analyzes an economy with an agrarian and an industrial sector. Demand is determined by Engel's Law. Population growth follows a non--linear income dependent path according to the theory of demographic transition. In case of decreasing returns to scale in the agrarian sector the...

The paper investigates an economy where parents observe wage rates, interest rates, and child mortality and decide about savings and the quantity and quality of their children. Expenditure on child quality causes human capital accmulation as an external effect. If mortality is high parents...