Poverty Traps and Growth in a Model of Endogenous Time Preference
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Debajyoti Chakrabarty
Abstract
We introduce endogenous probability of survival in the Keynes-Ramsey optimal growth model. An individual's probability of survival is assumed to be dependent on past levels of consumption. Endogenous probability of survival implies that the rate of time preference (or degree of patience) of an individual is endogenously determined. We solve the dynamic optimization problem facing an agent and provide a complete characterization of the steady states and their stability properties. We find that with endogenous rate of time preference an economy may have multiple steady state equilibria. The equilibrium an economy converges to depends on its initial conditions. The results are interpreted in light of the growth experiences of developing economies. The model can explain why two economies that have identical production technologies and identical preferences may converge to different levels of income depending on initial conditions. We estimate the relationship between adult probability of survival and lagged consumption for a cross section of countries. Our estimation results and subsequent simulations of the model suggest that if we interpret capital in our model broadly to include both physical and human capital, poverty traps are empirically plausible.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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- The Global Transmission of Government Debt
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- The Laffer Curve in a Frictional Labor Market
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Articles in the same Issue
- Advances Article
- Life Cycle Dynamics of Income Uncertainty and Consumption
- Immigration, Fiscal Policy, and Welfare in an Aging Population
- Contributions Article
- Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries
- How Much Did the 2009 Australian Fiscal Stimulus Boost Demand? Evidence from Household-Reported Spending Effects
- Economic Growth and Political Survival
- Exchange Rate Uncertainty and Trade
- Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms
- A Unified Framework for Using Micro-Data to Compare Dynamic Time-Dependent Price-Setting Models
- Government Policy Response to War-Expenditure Shocks
- Poverty Traps and Growth in a Model of Endogenous Time Preference
- Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Composition of Government Spending
- Great Spending Crashes
- Capital Utilization and the Amplification Mechanism
- Topics Article
- Unemployment Expectations and the Business Cycle
- Sector-Specific Capital, Labor Market Distortions and Cross-Country Income Differences: A Two-Sector General Equilibrium Approach
- A Dynamic Theory of Competence, Loyalty and Stability in Dictatorships
- Coordination Failure in Investment, Economic Growth, and Volatility
- Openness, Imported Commodities and the Sacrifice Ratio
- Consumption, Leisure and Borrowing Constraints
- A Credibility Proxy: Tracking US Monetary Developments
- Estimating Information Rigidity Using Firms' Survey Data
- Has the Fed Reacted Asymmetrically to Stock Prices?
- News Shocks, Productivity and the U.S. Investment Boom-Bust Cycle
- A Supply-Demand Framework for Understanding the U.S. Gender Gap in Education
- Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in Bolivia during the Market Liberalization Period
- Government Debt Dynamics Under Discretion
- The Global Transmission of Government Debt
- Is Discretionary Fiscal Policy in Japan Effective?
- The Laffer Curve in a Frictional Labor Market
- Nonexponential Discounting: A Direct Test And Perhaps A New Puzzle
- International Transmission of Medium-Term Technology Cycles: Evidence from Spain as a Recipient Country
- Phases of Economic Development: Do Initial Endowments Matter?
