This article concerns optimal income taxation under asymmetric information in a two-type OLG model when individuals’ relative consumption matters. Positional concerns affect the policy choices via two channels: (i) the average degree of positionality and (ii) positionality differences between...

The effects of both habit formation and status concerns are analyzed within a model with short-lived households and a long-lived public good, environmental quality. Status seeking induces households to raise consumption of goods and leisure, and pollution, and to lower environmental quality....

This paper investigates the impact of habits on savings and steady state capital intensity. Within the framework of an OLG economy with productive capital, a rise in the strength of habits increases savings if the steady state is asymptotically stable. Consequently, the steady state capital...

We analyze the effects of a generalized class of negative consumption externalities (asymmetric and non-atmospheric) on the structure of efficient commodity tax programs. Households are not only concerned about consumption reference levels — that is, they gain utility from “keeping up with...

The standard neoclassical growth model with Cobb-Douglas production predicts a monotonically declining saving rate, when reasonably calibrated. Ample empirical evidence, however, shows that the transition path of a country’s saving rate exhibits a rising or non- monotonic pattern. In important...