We develop an endogenous growth model with heterogeneous agents who care about their status in society. Following the social psychology literature, we formalise the idea that the reference standard to which people compare themselves is a choice variable. In such a framework, we analyse the...

Standard growth theory is based on atomistic agents with no strategic interactions among them. In contrast, we model growth as resulting from a one-off, strategic game between workers and owners of capital (capitalists) on factor shares, in an otherwise standard AK growth model. The resulting...

We introduce status in the most standard (canonical) macro model that is able to provide an analysis of growth and distribution. We consider the question of whether status considerations enable the model to meet some important empirical findings (which we review) related to rising labour supply...

We develop an overlapping generation model to examine how the relationship between status concerns, fertility and education affect growth performances. Results are threefold. First, we show that stronger status motives heighten the desire of parents to have fewer but better educated children,...

To shed lights on growth, distribution and the relationships between the two, we develop a growth model with heterogeneous individuals who care about social status. Individuals' heterogeneity stems from two sources: their innate skills and their degree of ambition. While the willingness of...

With a panel of 18 OECD countries, 1980-2005, we investigate the determinants of export performance, in particular the effects of the size of government and institutional features. In a model of endogenous extent of domestically-produced goods, government size has a non-linear effect on export...