The prevailing literature discusses intergenerational trade-offs in climate change predominantly in terms of the Ramsey equation relying on the infinitely lived agent model. We discuss these trade-offs in a continuous time OLG framework and relate our results to the infinitely lived agent setting. We identify three shortcomings of the latter: First, underlying normative assumptions about social preferences cannot be deduced unambiguously. Second, the distribution among generations living at the same time cannot be captured. Third, the optimal solution may not be implementable in overlapping generations market economies.

We study a model where economic growth is fueled by public basic-research investment and the importation of leading technology from foreign countries. In each period, the government chooses the amount of basic research, balancing the costs and benefits of stimulating growth through both channels. We establish the existence of steady states and the long-run share of technologically advanced sectors in the economy. Then we explore how different degrees of openness affect long-term incentives to invest in basic research. Our main insight is that higher openness tends to encourage more investment in basic research, which, in turn, yields a larger share of leading sectors. If, however, there are prospects of importing major technology advances, highly open countries will reduce basic research as such imports become particularly valuable.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Growth and Welfare under Endogenous Lifetime AbstractWe study the role of endogenous healthcare choices by households to extend their expected lifetimes on economic growth and welfare in a decentralized overlapping generations economy with the realistic feature that households' savings are held in annuities. We characterize healthcare spending in the decentralized market equilibrium and its effects on economic growth. We identify the moral-hazard effect in healthcare investments when annuity rates are conditioned on average mortality and explain the conditions under which this leads to overinvestment in healthcare. Moreover, we specify the general equilibrium effects and macroeconomic repercussions associated with this moral-hazard effect. In a numerical simulation of our model with OECD data, we find that the moral-hazard effect may be substantial and implies sizeable welfare losses of approximately 1.5%. At a more general level, our study suggests that welfare improvements from longevity increases may be lower than suggested when considered in planner economies.JEL-Codes: O400, I100, J100.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe explore optimal and politically feasible growth policies in the form of basic research investments and taxation. Basic research is a public good that benefits innovating entrepreneurs, but its provision and financing also affect the entire economy -in particular, occupational choices of potential entrepreneurs, wages, dividends, and aggregate output. We show that the impact of basic research on the general economy rationalizes a taxation pecking order to finance basic research. More specifically, in a society with desirably dense entrepreneurial activity, a large share of funds for basic research should be financed by labor taxation, while a minor share should be left to profit taxation. Such tax schemes will induce a significant proportion of agents to become entrepreneurs, thereby rationalizing substantial investments in basic research that fosters their innovation prospects. These entrepreneurial economies, however, may make a majority of workers worse off, giving rise to a conflict between efficiency and equality. We discuss ways of mitigating this conflict and thus strengthening the political support for growth policies.Keywords basic research · economic growth · entrepreneurship · income taxation · political economy JEL Classification D72 · H20 · H40 · O31 · O38 * We would like to thank

After most countries have harmonized intellectual property rights (IPR) legislation as a consequence of signing the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), the dispute about the optimal level of IPR-protection has shifted towards IPR-enforcement. This paper develops an endogenous growth framework with two open economies satisfying the classical North-South assumptions to study (a) the regions' incentives to enforce IPR in a decentralized game, (b) the desired IPR-enforcement of the two regions in negotiation rounds on global harmonization and (c) the constrained-efficient enforcement level. We show how the different solutions relate to each other and how the results depend on the research productivity in the North and the regions' relative market sizes. While growth rates substantially increase when IPR-enforcement is harmonized at the North's desired level, our numerical simulation suggests that the South may also benefit in terms of long-run welfare.