A common perception about the neoclassical growth model is that an economy devoid of capital cannot evolve to strictly positive levels of output if capital is essential. We challenge this view by positing a broad class of production functions, encompassing the neoclassical production function,...

This paper revisits the debate about the appropriate differential equation that governs the evolution of knowledge in models of endogenous growth. We argue that the assessment of the appropriateness of an equation of motion should not only be based on its implications for the future, but that it...

An analytical framework is developed to study the repercussions between endogenous capital- and labor-saving technical change and population aging. Following an intuition often attributed to Hicks (1932), I ask whether and how population aging affects the relative scarcity of factors of...

Uzawaś steady-state growth theorem (Uzawa (1961)) is generalized to a neoclassical economy that uses current output, e. g., to create technical progress or to manufacture intermediates. The difference between aggregate final-good production and these resources is referred to as net output. The...

This paper develops a new open-economy endogenous growth model where technology diffusion allows for a stable and non-degenerate world income distribution. In accordance with the empirical literature, I find that country characteristics such as the social infrastructure, the degree of openness,...

In a neoclassical economy with endogenous capital- and labor-augmenting technical change the steady-state growth rate of output per worker is shown to increase in the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. This confirms the assessment of Klump and de La Grandville (2000) that the...

At least since 1870 hours worked per worker declined and real wages increased in many of today's industrialized countries. The dual nature of technological progress in conjunction with a consumption-leisure complementarity explains these stylized facts. Technological progress drives real wages...

This paper develops a static model of endogenous task-based technical progress to study how factor scarcity induces technological progress and changes in factor prices. The equilibrium technology is multi-dimensional and not strongly factor-saving in the sense of Acemoglu (2010). Nevertheless,...

How does population aging affect economic growth and factor shares in times of increasingly automatable production processes? The present paper addresses this question in a new macroeconomic model of automation where competitive firms perform tasks to produce output. Tasks require labor and...

This paper introduces tasks into the neoclassical production sector. Competitive firms choose the profit-maximizing amounts of factor-specific tasks that determine their factor demands and output supplies. We show that the effect of factor-augmenting technical change on relative and absolute...