Keeping up with the Ageing Joneses

Walter Fisher and Ben J. Heijdra
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Ben J. Heijdra: Department of Economics, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

No 204, Economics Series from Institute for Advanced Studies

Abstract: In this paper we consider the implications of relative consumption externalities in the Blanchard-Yaari overlapping generations framework. Unlike most of the macroeconomic literature that studies this question, the differences between agents, and, thus, in their relative position, persist in equilibrium. We show in our fixed employment model that consumption externalities lower consumption and the capital stock in long-run equilibrium, a result in sharp contrast to the recent findings of Liu and Turnovsky (2005). In addition, we solve for the intertemporal path of the economy to investigate its response to demographic shocks, specifically, to permanent changes in the birth and death rates.

Keywords: Relative consumption; Overlapping generations; Demographic shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2007-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1761 First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Keeping up with the ageing Joneses (2009)
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