Optimal Population Growth as an Endogenous Discounting Problem: The Ramsey Case

Raouf Boucekkine (), Blanca Martinez () and José Ruiz-Tamarit

A chapter in Control Systems and Mathematical Methods in Economics, 2018, pp 321-347 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This paper revisits the optimal population size problem in a continuous time Ramsey setting with costly child rearing and both intergenerational and intertemporal altruism. The social welfare functions considered range from the Millian to the Benthamite. When population growth is endogenized, the associated optimal control problem involves an endogenous effective discount rate depending on past and current population growth rates, which makes preferences intertemporally dependent. We tackle this problem by using an appropriate maximum principle. Then we study the stationary solutions (balanced growth paths) and show the existence of two admissible solutions except in the Millian case. We prove that only one is optimal. Comparative statics and transitional dynamics are numerically derived in the general case.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Optimal Population Growth as an Endogenous Discounting Problem: The Ramsey Case (2018)
Working Paper: Optimal Population Growth as an Endogenous Discounting Problem: The Ramsey Case (2017)
Working Paper: Optimal population growth as an endogenous discounting problem: The Ramsey case (2017)
Working Paper: Optimal Population Growth as an Endogenous Discounting Problem: The Ramsey Case (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:lnechp:978-3-319-75169-6_16

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319751696

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-75169-6_16

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().