We study a model of endogenous growth where firms invest both in product and process innovations. Product innovations (that open up completely new product lines) satisfy the advanced wants of the rich. Subsequent process innovations (that decrease costs per unit of quality) transform the...

This paper discusses long-term trends in the macroeconomic growth performance and in income distribution in Europe and the U.S. We review insights from the recent macroeconomic literature on inequality and growth and use these insights to shed light on the growth and inequality trends

We explore how the underemployment problem of less-developed economies is related to income inequality. Our crucial assumption is that consumers have non-homothetic preferences over differentiated products of formal-sector goods and thus that inequality affects the composition of aggregate...

We study international trade in a model where consumers have non-homothetic preferences and where household income restricts the extensive margin of consumption. In equilibrium, monopolistic producers set high (low) prices in rich (poor) countries but a threat of parallel trade restricts the...

We present a model in which two of the most important features of the long-run growth process are reconciled: the massive changes in the structure of production and employment; and the Kaldor facts of economic growth. We assume that households expand their consumption along a hierarchy of needs...

This paper presents a dynamic North-South general equilibrium model with non- homothetic preferences. Innovation takes place in the rich North while firms in the poor South at random imitate products manufactured in the North. The model is able to generate endogenous product cycles as described...

Die aussergewöhnliche Geldpolitik des vergangenen Jahrzehnts hat der Schweizerischen Nationalbank (SNB) ein grösseres politisches Problem eingebrockt. Im Bemühen, den Schweizer Franken vor schädlichen Aufwertungsschüben zu bewahren, hat sie ihre Devisenbestände in kürzester Zeit mehr als...

This paper studies the Cass-Koopmans-Ramsey model of optimal economic growth in the presence of loss aversion and habit formation. The representative agent's preferences for consumption can be gradually varied between the standard constant intertemporal elasticity of substitution (CIES) case and...