The adoption decision for durable goods is intertemporal by definition. However, estimating utility and discount functions from revealed preference data using dynamic discrete choice models is difficult because of an inherent identification problem. To overcome this issue, we use stated...

Poor people have, on average, a higher marginal propensity to consume. One (out of many) possible explanations for this is that poverty affects impatience. This would have important implications for monetary and fiscal policy. While some macroeconomists simply assume lower individual discount...

What is an optimal or a sustainable external debt - for a country, region or sector? How should one monitor and evaluate debt to preclude a crisis? We use stochastic optimal control/dynamic programming to derive an optimal debt. The deviation of the actual from the optimal will serve as a...

This paper employs a stochastic endogenous growth model with productive government expenditure to analyze the macroeconomic effects of income taxation. We demonstrate that in the presence of capital and income risk the impact of taxation on consumption choice as well as on economic growth is...

In this paper the impacts of income and consumption taxes are analyzed within a model of stochastic endogenous growth with congestion. It is shown that the optimal amount of governmental input diminishes with uncertainty and that the optimal financing depends on the relation between the degrees...

Why do some people think they will behave differently in the future? Building on research on dynamic inconsistency and age related preferences, this paper introduces the concept that inconsistent intertemporal preferences are directly related to age. In previous studies, standard socioeconomic...

We study three procedures to elicit attitudes towards delayed payments: the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak procedure; the second price auction; and the multiple price list. The payment mechanisms associated with these methods are widely considered as incentive compatible, thus if preferences satisfy...