We compare two institutions head on, a family compact – a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children – with a pay-as-you-go, social security system in a lifecycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are valued both...

Momentary equilibria are defined as points that satisfy agents’ optimality conditions and market clearing at any date. However, some dynamic sequences commencing from such points may not be considered valid equilibria because they asymptotically violate some economic restriction of the...

We study a variant of the conventional keeping-up-with-the-Joneses setup in which heterogeneous-ability agents care both about consumption and leisure and receive an utility premium if their consumption exceeds that of the Joneses'. Unlike the conventional setup in which all agents are assumed...

TTwo equilibrium possibilities are known to obtain in a standard overlapping-generations model with dynastic preferences: either the altruistic bequest motive is operative for every generation (in which case, Ricardian equivalence obtains) or it is not, for any generation. Dynamic equilibria,...

This paper studies a pure-exchange monetary overlapping generations economy in which young and old agents face exogenous minimum consumption requirements, and money is the only asset. The presence of the minimum consumption requirement on the old is shown to produce multiperiodic monetary...

This note studies a model in which heterogeneous income agents get a utility boost only when their consumption catches up with the Joneses'. The resulting utility function is non-concave. In this setup, participation in a fair consumption lottery has the potential to make some agents ex-ante...

This paper argues that income received via redistributive transfers, unlike labor income, requires no direct sacrifice of leisure; this makes it attractive to many voters even if it leaves them poorer. This point is made within the classic Meltzer and Richard (1981) model wherein heterogeneous...

Rejuveniles are "grown-ups who cultivate juvenile tastes in products and entertainment". In this note, we study a standard AK growth model of overlapping generations populated by rejuveniles. For our purposes, rejuveniles are old agents who derive utility from "keeping up" their consumption with...