This paper analyzes the welfare effects of altruism on the optimal fiscal policy. The existence of positive bequests links present and future generations in the economy. We show that these altruistic links provide a new role for indirect taxation (consumption and estate taxes) with important...

Introduction -- A Brief Survey of the Literature -- The Closed Economy: The Solow Model -- Overlapping Generations -- Infinite Horizon -- The Small Open Economy: The Solow Model -- Overlapping Generations -- Two Countries: The Solow Model -- Synopsis -- Conclusion -- Result

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...