In this paper, we introduce a complementary relationship between consumption and labor hours by revising the household's period utility function in Liu et al. (2013). The revision concomitantly allows for a finite Frisch elasticity of labor supply and a stronger consumption smoothing motive. We find that, in general, the estimation of Liu et al. (2013) is quite robust. In addition, the propagation mechanism of the credit constraint triggered by a housing demand shock still persists. However, the amplification effect of the credit constraint triggered by the housing demand shock on key macroeconomic variables is greatly muted. We also find that, except for land price fluctuations, the housing demand shock cannot act as the primary force to drive the fluctuations in other macroeconomic variables.

This paper examines optimal monetary policy in a two-country New Keynesian model with international trade in intermediate inputs. We derive the loss function of a cooperative monetary policymaker and find that the optimal monetary policy must target intermediate-goods price inflation rates, final-goods price inflation rates, final-goods output gaps, and relative-price gaps. We use the welfare loss under the optimal monetary policy as a benchmark to evaluate the welfare implications of three Taylor-type monetary policy rules. A main finding is that the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is a key factor to determine which policy rule should be followed. Specifically, when the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is high, the policymaker should follow intermediate-goods PPI-based Taylor rule, whereas CPI-based Taylor rule should be followed when the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is intermediate or low.

This article uses the Z -transform to develop a method for solving the linearised multidimensional discrete-time systems, which can be used to discuss the effects of policies on economy (including the welfare gains and initial effects on economy) raised by multi-sector perfect-foresight-discrete-time models. Our method is not restricted to the dimension of the dynamic system, and it can not only analyse the effect of permanent policy change on the economy but also can be used to analyse the effect of temporal policy change on the economy. As an application example, we analyse the effects of fiscal policy on the initial economy and social welfare in the discrete-time Uzawa--Lucas model.

This paper develops a general technique for the computation of comparative dynamics in perfect-foresight discrete-time models. The method developed here is both applicable and general; it can be used to analyze the effects of the perturbation of parameters on endogenous variables and the welfare of an economic system derived from more general multisector models. It is neither restricted to the system's dimensions nor restricted by the assumption of distinct eigenvalues in the system.

In this paper, we consider a finite-horizon model with the time-additive utility and the time varying discount rate. With the assumption of the concavity of absolute risk tolerance, the concavity of the consumption function has been proved. This result significantly broadens the conclusion of Carroll and Kimball (1996) for the case of the HARA utility function.

This paper analyzes the effect of health investment, and hence of health capital, on physical capital accumulation and long-run economic growth in an extended Ramsey model with an Arrow–Romer production function and a Grossman (1972) utility function. The paper concludes that economic growth is related to both the health growth rate and the health level. While growth in health capital always facilitates economic growth, the gross effect of health level on the rate of economic growth depends on how it affects physical capital accumulation. If the negative effect of health on economic growth through its influence on physical capital accumulation is not taken into consideration, then health level has a positive effect on the rate of economic growth by improving the efficiency of labor production. However, since health investment may crowd out physical capital investment and thus influence physical capital accumulation, excessive investment in health may have a negative effect on economic growth. Empirical tests of these theoretical hypotheses using panel data from individual provinces of China produce results that are consistent with our theoretical conclusions.

This note extends Matsuyama's 0–1 endogenous retirement choice model to the framework with continuous endogenous retirement choice to study the consumption‐saving decision and capital accumulation in an overlapping generation model. The conditions for the existence of multiple steady states have been derived. In contrast to the 0 or 1 labour choice, the partial retirement may be a stable steady state under the continuous endogenous retirement choice in the second period. And this implies that partial retirement may be a stable optimal choice. Also, we find that the retirement choice depends on the initial capital stock when there are multiple steady states.

This paper studies the risk‐free rate in an overlapping generations economy with bequests. It is shown that the risk‐free rate depends on risk aversion, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, the share of wealth invested in human wealth, life expectancy, and the preference for bequests. In a standard life‐cycle context, mortality increases the subjective time rate of discount, and thus increases the compensation required to postpone consumption. This latter effect is offset in a bequest‐driven model of the type considered here, leading to much more powerful income effects. In this sense, the model provides a bequest‐motive explanation for the risk‐free rate puzzle put forward by Weil in 1989.

This paper extends the Barro (1990) model with single aggregate government spending and one flat income tax to include public expenditures and taxes by multiple levels of government. It derives the rate of endogenous growth and, with both simulations and special examples, examines how that rate changes with respect to federal income tax, local taxes, and federal transfers. It also discusses the growth and welfare‐maximizing choices of taxes and federal transfers.

This paper studies capital accumulation and consumption in the traditional Ramsey model under an exogenous growth framework. The model has three important features: (1) treating health as a simple function of consumption, which enable the study of health and growth in an aggregate macroeconomic model; (2) the existence of multiple equilibria of capital stock, health, and consumption, which is more consistent with the real world situation-rich countries may end up with high capital, better health, and higher consumption than poor countries; (3) the fundamental proposition of a consumption tax instead of capital taxation from the traditional growth model does not hold anymore in our model. As long as consumption goods contribute to health formation, the issue of a consumption tax versus an income (or capital) tax should be re-examined.

This paper extends Kurz's (1968) growth model to a stochastic growth framework with social-status concern and unbounded production shocks. Using the stochastic monotonicity of a stochastic dynamic system and the methods adopted in Zhang (2007), the existence, uniqueness, and stability of invariant distribution are investigated. Different from the existence of multiple steady states under certainty, it is shown here that there exists a unique stable invariant distribution under uncertainty.

This paper studies capital accumulation and equilibrium interest rates in stochastic production economies with the concern of social status. Given a specific utility function and production function, explicit solutions for capital accumulation and equilibrium interest rates have been derived. With the aid of steady-state distributions for capital stock, the effects of fiscal policies, social-status concern, and stochastic shocks on capital accumulation and equilibrium interest rates have been investigated. A significant finding of this paper is the demonstration of multiple stationary distributions for capital stocks and interest rates with the concern of social status.

In an infinite-horizon model with Marshallian time preferences, foreign aid, foreign borrowing, and domestic capital accumulation, this paper reexamines the effects of foreign aid on domestic capital accumulation and foreign borrowing. Comparative static analysis shows that a permanent increase in foreign aid leads to an increase in both long-run capital accumulation and domestic consumption, but a decrease in foreign borrowing. Short-run analysis shows that both a permanent and a temporary increase in foreign aid makes people more patient, which leads to a rise in investment and a reduction in foreign borrowing initially.

This paper considers foreign asset holdings and macroeconomic policies in a finite-horizon model with real balances and foreign asset holdings in a small open economy. Both the long- and short-run effects of these macroeconomic policies on the economy are reexamined. The main results stand in striking contrast to those of Obstfeld (1981), who used an endogenous time preference. (1) Foreign exchange intervention leads to more foreign asset holdings and more consumption in the long run. However, it affects foreign asset accumulation ambiguously. (2) Inflation results in more foreign asset accumulation and consumption, but the effect of inflation on real balance holdings is ambiguous. (3) Government spending affects foreign asset accumulation ambiguously, and it always reduces real balances and crowds out private consumption.

With the introduction of Marshallian recursive preferences to the Sidrauski model, this paper re-examines the effects of monetary growth on the economy. It is found that an increase in the monetary growth rate decreases the steady-state value of capital stock, consumption, and real balance holding. Short-run analysis presents the mechanism that inflation affects the economy: An increase in the monetary growth rate leads to an increase of initial consumption and reduction of initial savings, which increases the instantaneous time preference rate and makes people less patient initially. Finally, Friedman's optimal monetary growth rule is also investigated in this paper.

In a stochastic monetary model with the cash-in-advance constraint and the social-status concern, this paper studies the effects of inflation and inflation variability on growth. It is shown that the Tobin effect still holds under deterministic monetary growth. The effect of inflation on growth, however, is ambiguous under stochastic monetary growth: the effect is positive when an agent's desire for social status is relatively strong and negative when this desire is relatively weak. It is also found that inflation variability always stimulates growth.

Hyperbolic discounting is not observationally equivalent to exponential discounting. It is always possible to calibrate an exponential model so that it predicts the same level of consumption as a hyperbolic model. However, the two models have radically different comparative statics.

Observation equivalence holds in the hyperbolic discounting models such as Laibson (1996), Barro (1999), and Krusell et al (2002). We study a hyperbolic discounting model where the policy function cannot be replicated by a geometric discounting model. Under the logarithmic utility and Cobb-Douglas production, we obtain the explicit solution for consumer's consumption-saving decision. Different from the literatures of exponential discounting, our model shows that the habit persistence affects consumer''s consumption-saving decision. Therefore, observational equivalence does not hold in our hyperbolic discounting model.