A simple OLG model is used to show that the natural interest rate is superior to the golden rule. This remains valid with public goods, provided these are financed in an appropriate way. In order to preserve the natural interest rate, the so-called helicopter money appears to be more appropriate...

It has repeatedly been proposed to reduce conventional pay-as-you-go-systems to a base level, leaving advanced retirement provision for private funded systems. However, pay-asyou-go systems are, in a sense, one way roads, with no available Pareto efficient way out. The paper discusses a combined...

A general model of intertemporal consumption choice is developed, following Samuelson`s 1958 OLG-approach. The efficiency properties of the model are discussed with and without the introduction of durable goods, of productive capital, and fiat money. It is shown that the criterion of golden rule...

The paper argues that, from a dynamic efficiency perspective, intersections of factor price frontiers are irrelevant to the choice of techniques. Because every change in technique involves a temporary loss or gain in both profit and per capita consumption within the transition period, its...

An optimal taxation approach is employed to compare a proportional income tax with a death tax within a simple lifetime-cycle-model. The impact of both taxes is discussed concerning consumption, leisure, savings, and inheritance. It is shown that the income tax generally leaves the tax payer...

A simple OLG-model is developed, where housing is the only consumption good and saving is either in terms of financial assets or in terms of owner-occupied or rented dwellings. It is shown that, while without taxes optimal consumption plans and maximum utility are the same for both the tenant...

A model is developed which explains deep recessions like the recent crisis by a lack of economic confidence, going along with a high liquidity preference of both private households and the private banking system. Thus the paper argues for a new form of Keynesian policy, which rests on monetary...

100 years after Böhm-Bawerks death and nearly 70 years after Keynes has died there is still fundamental controversy about the factors which determine the interest rate in the long run. While Economists in the Austrian tradition see it as solely driven by real phenomena, Keynesian authors mainly...