Research Overview
My research has been guided by two primary interests:
My research has been guided by two primary interests:
- Time non-separable preferences: The idea is to understand how demand-side forces affect the growth process. Standard growth models assume that individual overall level of satisfaction (utility) can be measured exclusively from their own current consumption (and in many cases leisure). The limitations of this utility specification have become increasingly recognized, especially in light of the anecdotal evidence from phrases like: “humans are creatures of habits” or “by force of habit” or “I am looking forward for this vacation, or the weekend”. My goal is to study the impact, on growth and welfare, when current utility depends not only on current consumption, but also on a reference benchmark (backward or forward looking) against which current consumption can be compared.
- The impact of fiscal policy on economic growth and welfare: The importance of government expenditure on growth and welfare has been widely studied and recognized, with the impact depending on whether government expenditure on goods and services is classified as productive (productivity-enhancing) or nonproductive (utility-enhancing). My goal is to achieve a better understanding of the implications of government expenditure composition on economic growth, taking into account the trade-offs that resource constraints impose on government choices.
Publications:
- “Anticipation in Leisure—Effects on Labor‐Leisure Choice,” International Journal of Economic Theory, 2022, (with Bibaswan Chatterjee and Rolando A. Escobar Posada)
- "Anticipated future consumption in an endogenous growth model" Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 26 , Issue 5 , July 2022 , pp. 1202 - 1238
- “Stock vs. flow specification of infrastructures: a dynamic analysis,” The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics Contributions, Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2018 (with Rolando A. Escobar-Posada).
- “Optimal tax policy in the presence of productive, consumption, and leisure externalities”, Economics Letters, Volume 152, Pages 62-65, 2017 (with Rolando A. Escobar-Posada)
- “Anticipated Consumption and its Impact on Capital Accumulation and Growth: ‘Forward-Looking’ vs. ‘Backward-Looking’ Consumption Reference,” International Journal of Economic Theory (12) 3, 2016, (with Stephen Turnovsky).
- “Long-run growth and welfare in a two-sector endogenous growth model with productive and non-productive government expenditure,” Journal of Macroeconomics 46; 218-234, 2015, (with Rolando A. Escobar-Posada).
- "Internal habits in an endogenous growth model with elastic labor supply,” Economic Modelling 51;583-595, 2015, (with Manuel Gómez).
- “Optimal Tax Policy under Habit Formation and Capital Utilization,” Journal of Macroeconomics 37 230-248, 2013, (with Adam Cook and Sanjoy Dey).
- “The Composition of Productive Government Expenditure: Consequences for Economic Growth and Welfare,” Indian Growth and Development Review, Vol. 1, No. 1; 57-83, 2008, (paper solicited for inaugural issue) (with Stephen J. Turnovsky).
- “The tenure game: Building up academic habits,” Japanese Economic Review 59, 370-380, 2008, (with Joao Ricardo Faria).
- “Consumption Externalities, Production Externalities, and Efficient Capital Accumulation under Time Non-Separable Preferences,” European Economic Review, 51, 479-504, 2007, (with Stephen J. Turnovsky).
- “Habit Formation, Catching up with the Joneses, and Economic Growth,” Journal of Economic Growth, 9, 47-80, 2004, (with Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado and Stephen J. Turnovsky).