INHERITED TASTES AND ENDOGENOUS LONGEVITY

This article aims at studying a general equilibrium model with overlapping generations that incorporates inherited tastes (aspirations) and endogenous longevity. The existence of standard-of-living aspirations transmitted between two subsequent generations in a context where the individual state of health depends on public investments in health has some remarkable consequences at the macroeconomic level. First, aspirations allow escaping from the well-known poverty trap scenario described by Chakraborty (2004). Second, the steady-state equilibrium may be destabilized through a super-critical Neimark–Sacker bifurcation when the health tax rate is set at too high or too low a level. This causes endogenous fluctuations in income and longevity.

Endogenous longevity and the joint dynamics of pollution and capital accumulation

The current paper offers a new explanation of the emergence of multiple equilibria, for which the high (low) income equilibrium is associated with high (low) environmental quality. This new explanation rests on endogenous technological choice in the presence of emission taxes – an idea whose foundations find strong support from existing empirical evidence. Thus, the interactions between environmental policy and technology choice, within a framework that accounts for the health effects of pollution, may suggest a possible mechanism behind some of the observed differences in income, life expectancy and environmental quality among countries.