Engel's Law and Growth with Directed Technical Change

Timo Boppart

DEGIT Conference Papers from DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade

Abstract: This paper presents a tractable endogenous two-sector growth model with non-Gorman intra-temporal preferences and directed technical change. One of the two consumption goods is a necessity, whereas the other is a luxury. If the economy starts with a low initial knowledge stock, households are relatively poor and a high expenditure share is devoted to necessities. Therefore, in early phases of development, technical innovations are mainly directed toward the necessity sector. According to Engel’s law, growth in income increases the expenditure share of the luxury sector. Biased technical change constitutes another force that leads to shifts in expenditure shares. The resulting structural change is accompanied by increasing R&D investments in the luxury sector, whereas investments in the necessity sector become less attractive. The asymptotic equilibrium consists of a nonbalanced constant growth path along which the Kaldor facts hold, and growth is mainly driven by the luxury sector.

Keywords: Engel’s law; directed technical change; structural change; nonbalanced growth; two-sector model; non-Gorman preferences. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 O11 O30 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2010-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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