In the theory of endogenous time preference, one of the most common and most controversial assumptions is that the degree of impatience, measured by the rate of time preference, is increasing in wealth. Although this empirically-unjustified assumption often helps ease dynamic analyses by ensuring stability, it has never been discussed why decreasing impatience is theoretically problematic. We first show that under certain conditions there exists no optimal solution when impatience is decreasing. By considering problem-proof, well-behaved models, we examine implications of decreasing impatience for three issues that have been discussed in the literature: (i) long-run tax incidence of capital taxation; (ii) the effect of inflation on growth; and (iii) wealth distribution dynamics in the two-country world.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University in its series ISER Discussion Paper with number
0536.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Fumiko Matsumoto).
Related research
Keywords:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Robert E. Lucas Jr. & Nancy L. Stokey, 1982.
"Optimal Growth with Many Consumers,"
Discussion Papers
518, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
[Downloadable!]