This paper develops an economic explanation of the Dutch colonization of southern Africa. The changing attitudes of the Dutch to colonial growth are seen as a rational response to shifting economic constraints rather than as a function of changing tastes. The model emphasizes the importance of...

We study the effects of an annuity market imperfection on individual agents' life-cycle decisions and on the macroeconomic growth rate in an overlapping generations model with single-sector endogenous growth. Our model features both age-dependent mortality and labour productivity. We model...

We construct an overlapping generations model for the small open economy incorporating a realistic description of the mortality process. With age-dependent mortality, the typical life-cycle pattern of consumption and saving results from the maximizing behaviour of individual households. Our...

In this paper we consider the implications of relative consumption externalities in the Blanchard-Yaari overlapping generations framework. Unlike most of the macroeconomic literature that studies this question, the differences between agents, and, thus, in their relative position, persist in...

We study the effects of stylized demographic and fiscal shocks on the macroeconomic performance of an industrialized small open economy. We construct an overlapping-generations model which incorporates a realistic description of the mortality process. Agents engage in educational activities at...