The output multiplier turns negative before a deficit spending program expires.We show the generality of this unpleasant finding for the standard real business cyclemodel. We then calibrate an extended model for the US and demonstrate how fiscalstimulus slows down economic recovery from...

Unied growth theory predicts that the timing of the fertility transitionis a key determinant of contemporary comparative development, as itmarks the onset of the take-o to sustained growth. Neoclassical growth theorypresupposes a take-o, and explains comparative development by variationsin...

This paper proposes a theory for the gradual evolution of knowl-edge diffusion and growth over the very long run. A feedback mechanismbetween capital accumulation and the ease of knowledge diffusion explains along epoch of (quasi-) stasis and an epoch of high growth linked by a grad-ual economic...

Conventional R&D-based growth theory suggests that productivitygrowth is positively correlated with population size or population growth,an implication which is hard to see in the data. Here we integrate R&D-basedgrowth into a unied growth setup with micro-founded fertility and...

We examine the long-run relationship between fertility, mortality, and incomeusing panel cointegration techniques and the available data for the last century.Our main result is that mortality changes and growth of income per capita account for amajor part of the fertility change characterizing...

We set up a neoclassical growth model extended by a corporate sector, aninvestment and finance decision of firms, and a set of taxes on capital income. We provideanalytical dynamic scoring of taxes on corporate income, dividends, capital gains, otherprivate capital income, and depreciation...

This paper introduces wealth-dependent time preference into a simplemodel of endogenous growth. The model generates adjustment dynamics in linewith the historical facts on savings and economic growth in Europe from the HighMiddle Ages to today. Along a virtuous cycle of development more wealth...

This paper proposes a model that links households and firms, as usual, by markets forfactors and goods and, additionally, by a banking sector that channels households’funds to firms and eliminates idiosyncratic risk. In equilibrium, agency costs and taxbenefits of corporate debt are equalizing...

Taxes on inheritances may induce heirs to discontinue family firms. Becausefirm dissolution incurs transaction costs, a preferential tax treatment of transferredfamily businesses seems to be desirable from a macroeconomic viewpoint.The support of dynastic succession, however, entails also a cost...

Does it make us unhappier when we compare our consumptionwith that of the Joneses or our own past achievements? This paper tries ananswer by bringing together two disparate literatures: the macro (growth)theory on habit formation and the applied literature related to the Easterlinparadox. Using...