Intergenerational altruism and neoclassical growth models

Philippe Michel, Jean-Pierre Vidal and Emmanuel Thibault

No 386, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: This paper surveys intergenerational altruism in neoclassical growth models. It first examines Barro's approach to intergenerational altruism, whereby successive generations are linked by recursive altruistic preferences. Individuals have an altruistic concern only for their children, who in turn also have altruistic feelings for their own children. The conditions under which the Ricardian equivalence (debt neutrality) theorem applies are specified. The effectiveness of fiscal policy is further analysed in the context of an economy populated by heterogeneous families differing with respect to their degree of intergenerational altruism. Other forms of altruism, referred to as ad hoc altruism, are also examined, along with their implications for fiscal policy. JEL Classification: E13, D64, E62, C60

Keywords: altruism; fiscal policy.; neoclassical general aggregative models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-08
Note: 147733
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Chapter: Intergenerational altruism and neoclassical growth models (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2004386

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