We introduce intergenerational transfers into a general equilihrium life-cycle model in order to explain observed levels of wealth heterogeneity. In our overlapping generations model, heterogenous agents face uncertain lifetime and leave both accidental and voluntary bequests to their cinldren....

Peter Diamond has made fundamental contributions to economic theory over a wide range of areas including search theory and its implications for unemployment (for which he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize), optimal taxation, which he pioneered with James Mirrlees, incomplete markets and their...

This paper investigates the impact of the desire to keep up with the Joneses (KUJ) on economic growth and optimal tax policy in a continuous time overlapping generations model with AK technology and gradual retirement. Due to the desire to KUJ, the propensity to consume out of total wealth rises...

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...

We examine the impact of flat-rate taxes on intergenerational equity in an overlapping generations model of a small open economy, assuming the intergenerational externality of human capital accumulation. The externality may cause the difference between the growth rates in private human capital...

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which market forces create an incentive for cloning human beings. We show that a market for cloning arises if a large enough fraction of the clone’s income can be appropriated by its model. Only people with the highest ability are cloned, while people at...

I study a model where Information Technology, while typically increasing overall inequality, is likely to harm some people at intermediate and high levels of the distribution of income but to benefit people at the bottom. Within a given occupation it may harm some workers while benefitting...

This paper examines the extent to which intergenerational links through transfers of wealth and investment in human capital might help in accounting for the wealth inequality observed in U.S. data. We examine an overlapping-generations heterogeneous agents economy with idiosyncratic risk and...