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Anticipated consumption and its impact on capital accumulation and growth: “Forward‐looking” versus “backward‐looking” consumption reference

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International Journal of Economic Theory

Published online on

Abstract

This paper introduces the idea of anticipated pleasure into the Ramsey growth model, by assuming that in addition to current consumption, an agent's current utility depends upon a reference consumption level based on expected future consumption. Two alternative specifications of the anticipated future consumption levels are considered: an external index and an internal index. We analyze the macrodynamic equilibrium, comparing it to both the standard Ramsey model and the model of habit formation. We establish a number of theoretical propositions characterizing the impact of the anticipated consumption reference on the transitional dynamics and long‐run equilibrium, supplementing these with numerical simulations.