RIEB Seminar (Jointly supported by: Rokko Forum / Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research)
| Date&Time | Wednesday, February 1, 2017, 3:00pm-5:00pm |
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| Place | Seminar Room at RIEB (Kanematsu Memorial Hall, 1st Floor) |
| Intended Audience | Faculties, Graduate Students, Undergraduates, and People with Equivalent Knowledge |
| Language | English |
| Note | Copies of the paper will be available at Office of Promoting Research Collaboration. |
3:00pm-4:00pm
| Speaker | Reto FOELLMI |
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| Affiliation | Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, University of St.Gallen |
| Topic | Harmful Pro-Competitive Effects of Trade in Presence of Credit Market Frictions |
4:00pm-5:00pm
| Speaker | Laixun ZHAO |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | RIEB, Kobe University |
| Topic | Inequality and Patience in Catching up |
| Abstract | This paper examines how impatience interacts with inequalities in economic development. We consider two distinct groups of households, (i.e., with intrinsic inequality), and show that (i) under decreasing marginal impatience (DMI), an unequal society may be preferable for poor households; (ii) poor households tend to benefit more from positive shocks under DMI than CMI (constant marginal impatience). (iii) inequality exhibits a sharp inverted-U shape as more people become rich, which should be good news for developing countries in catching up; (iv) a tax on capital income reduces poor households' income when the fraction of the rich is sufficiently small. We also extend the basic model to examine the effects of immigration into rich countries. |