Time Preference and International Lending and Borrowing in an Overlapping-Generations Model

Willem H. Buiter

NBER Working Paper No. 352 (Also Reprint No. r0216)
Issued in May 1979
NBER Program(s):   ITI   IFM

Two economies, represented by Diamond-type overlapping-generations models and differing only in their pure rates of time preference, are joined together. Capital formation, balance-of-payments behavior, and welfare are compared under autarky and openness. With a positive natural rate of growth, the low-time-preference country runs a current account surplus in the steady state but not necessarily outside it. If preexisting capital is not shiftable between countries, integration in the world economy makes the high-time-preference country worse off in the short run. The ranking of stationary utility levels under autarky and openness is ambiguous.

(696 K)

Published: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 89, No. 4, pp. 769-797, (August 1981).

This paper is available as PDF (696 K) or via email.

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX