We study the link between public enforcement of property rights, innovation investments, and economic growth in an endogenous growth framework with an expanding set of product varieties. We find that a government may assure positive equilibrium growth through public employment in the enforcement...

The Inada (1963) conditions constitute a defining property of the neoclassical production function with capital and labor as arguments. Are these conditions justifiable on economic grounds? Yes, they are: we show that a production function with positive, yet diminishing marginal products and...

This Paper studies the impact of wage growth on the evolution of employment in an intertemporal general-equilibrium model with endogenous productivity growth. For real wage growth above laissez-faire levels, we obtain steady-state equilibria in which productivity grows at the same rate as wages,...

Extensive growth based on the expansion of inputs is likely to be subject to diminishing returns. Therefore it is often viewed as having no effect on per capita magnitudes in the long run. This Paper argues that periods of extensive growth through capital accumulation may be a precursor to...

If capital is an essential input, the neoclassical growth model has a steady state with zero capital. From this, one is inclined to conclude that an economy starting without capital can never grow. We challenge this view and claim that, if the production function satisfies the Inada conditions,...

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 aff ects the relative scarcity of factors of...

We analyze a generalized neoclassical growth model that combines a normalized CES production function and possible asymmetries of savings out of factor incomes. This generalized model helps to shed new light on a recent debate concerning the impact of factor substitution and income distribution...

The design of distribution channels is an important marketing decision since a revision implies costly reorganization. Hence, it makes sense to study strategic motives of alternative distribution devices. A precommitment is a strategic move that affects the other players'expectations on how...

Often a quality improvement necessitates modifications of varietal product features. This paper studies firms' incentives to invest in quality improving R&D when this decision affects the goods' degree of varietal differention.