Altruism and self-refrain

David de la Croix and Philippe Michel

No 1998010, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: We address the issue of altruism when standard-of-living aspirations are transmitted from one generation to the other. In that case, the influence of altruistic parents is not limited to the bequest they could leave; indeed, they direct the evolution of children's aspirations toward raising their utility by refraining their own consumption standard. We show that, even if there is no bequest, altruism always increases capital accumulation and has a stabilizing effect on the economy. In an example nesting the Barro-Weil model, bequests can be positive even if this is never the case in the Barro-Weil economy. It is possible for an economy to experience regime shifts along the convergence path to the steady state.

Keywords: altruism; habits; catching-up; regime shift (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 1997-09-01, Revised 1998-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-evo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:1998010

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