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International Status Seeking, Trade, and Growth Leadership

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Abstract

This paper formalizes international status seeking in a two-country model of endogenous growth: utility of agents in developing countries is affected by consumption gaps with advanced economies. By distorting intertemporal choices, envy tends to revert growth differentials in favor of the developing country when traded goods are substitutes. Notably, asymmetric pref- erences with endogenous status desire generate (i) convergence in growth rates in the presence of structural gaps, and (ii) convergence in income levels, if productivity differences are absorbed by technology diffusion. This process is driven by declining terms of trade and faster capital accumulation of the status seeker. A calibration exercise shows that the model predictions are consistent with the stylized facts that characterized the growth performance of East Asian economies.

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  • Simone Valente, 2007. "International Status Seeking, Trade, and Growth Leadership," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 07/75, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:eth:wpswif:07-75
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    Cited by:

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    2. Fujisaki, Seiya, 2013. "Taylor rules and equilibrium determinacy in a two-country model with non-traded goods," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 597-603.
    3. Christa N. Brunnschweiler & Päivi Lujala, 2019. "Economic Backwardness and Social Tension," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 482-516, April.
    4. Juin-Jen Chang & Yi-Ling Cheng & Shin-Kun Peng, 2017. "Social comparisons in consumption, international capital flows and tax competition," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 47-71, March.
    5. Niemi, Janne, 2018. "Short-run and long-run food import elasticities with persistent trading habits," Working Papers 111, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Bretschger, Lucas & Valente, Simone, 2018. "Productivity Gaps And Tax Policies Under Asymmetric Trade," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(6), pages 1391-1427, September.
    7. Mehlum, Halvor & Torvik, Ragnar & Valente, Simone, 2016. "The savings multiplier," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 90-105.
    8. Fujisaki, Seiya, 2012. "Taylor rules and equilibrium determinacy in a two-country model with non-traded goods," MPRA Paper 40023, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endogenous Growth; International Trade; Consumption Externalities; Productivity Differences; Status Seeking; Technology Diffusion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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