IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gla/glaewp/2023_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Selection, Patience and the Interest Rate (version January 2023)

Author

Listed:
  • Radoslaw (Radek) Stefanski
  • Alex Trew

Abstract

The interest rate has been steadily falling for centuries. A process of selection that leads to increasing societal patience is key to explaining this decline. Three observations point to the potential role of this mechanism: patience varies across individuals, patience is inter-generationally persistent, and patience is positively related to fertility. A calibrated dynamic, heterogenous-agent model of fertility permits us to isolate the quantitative contribution of this mechanism. Selection can explain most of the decline in the interest rate over seven centuries, a fact that is robust to a number of model extensions. Quantitative implications are consistent with other facts, such as the steady increase in the investment rate since 1300.

Suggested Citation

  • Radoslaw (Radek) Stefanski & Alex Trew, 2023. "Selection, Patience and the Interest Rate (version January 2023)," Working Papers 2023_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2023_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_910029_smxx.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levy, Moshe, 2015. "An evolutionary explanation for risk aversion," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 51-61.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    3. Gregory Clark & Neil Cummins & Matthew Curtis, 2020. "Twins Support the Absence of Parity-Dependent Fertility Control in Pretransition Populations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1571-1595, August.
    4. Robson, Arthur J., 1996. "A Biological Basis for Expected and Non-expected Utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 397-424, February.
    5. Allen M. Featherstone & Timothy G. Baker, 1987. "An Examination of Farm Sector Real Asset Dynamics: 1910–85," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(3), pages 532-546.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Radoslaw Stefanski & Alex Trew, 2022. "Selection, Patience, and the Interest Rate (updated 2023)," Working Papers 2022_08, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. repec:gla:glaewp:2020-03 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Moshe Levy, 2022. "An evolutionary explanation of the Allais paradox," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1545-1574, November.
    4. Songjia Fan & Yi Tao & Cong Li, 2022. "Evolutionary rationality of risk preference," Papers 2206.09813, arXiv.org.
    5. Terence C. Burnham, 2016. "Economics and evolutionary mismatch: humans in novel settings do not maximize," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 195-209, October.
    6. Stanley Fischer, 1991. "Growth, Macroeconomics, and Development," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 329-379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    8. Stavros Panageas & Nicolae Garleanu, 2008. "Yooung, Old, Conservative and Bold: The implications of finite lives and heterogeneity for asset prices," 2008 Meeting Papers 409, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Hany Eldemerdash & Hugh Metcalf & Sara Maioli, 2014. "Twin deficits: new evidence from a developing (oil vs. non-oil) countries’ perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 825-851, November.
    10. Bruche, Max & Segura, Anatoli, 2017. "Debt maturity and the liquidity of secondary debt markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 599-613.
    11. Fehr, Hans & Ruocco, Anna, 1999. "Equity and efficiency aspects of the Italian debt reduction," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 569-589, December.
    12. Rajnish Mehra & Facundo Piguillem & Edward C. Prescott, 2011. "Costly financial intermediation in neoclassical growth theory," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(1), pages 1-36, March.
    13. Rosa Aísa & Fernando Pueyo, 2004. "Endogenous longevity, health and economic growth: a slow growth for a longer life?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(3), pages 1-10.
    14. Yuzuru Kumon & Mohamed Saleh, 2023. "The Middle‐Eastern marriage pattern? Malthusian dynamics in nineteenth‐century Egypt," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1231-1258, November.
    15. Lorenzo Pozzi, 2003. "Tax Discounting in a High‐debt Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 261-282, July.
    16. Xavier Pautrel, 2015. "Abatement Technology and the Environment–Growth Nexus with Education," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(3), pages 297-318, July.
    17. Paul Beaudry & Katsiaryna Kartashova & Césaire A Meh, 2022. "Gazing at r*: A Hysteresis Perspective," RBA Annual Conference Papers acp2022-08, Reserve Bank of Australia, revised Dec 2022.
    18. Kollmann, Robert, 2022. "A tractable overlapping generations structure for quantitative DSGE models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    19. Brito Paulo & Marini Giancarlo & Piergallini Alessandro, 2016. "House prices and monetary policy," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 251-277, June.
    20. Radoslaw (Radek) Stefanski & Alex Trew, 2021. "Selection, Patience, and the Interest Rate (updated 2023 2023_01)," Working Papers 2020_03, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    21. d’Albis, Hippolyte & Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Hupkes, Hermen Jan, 2014. "Stability and determinacy conditions for mixed-type functional differential equations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 119-129.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Interest rates; selection; fertility; patience; heterogenous agents.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2023_01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Business School Research Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpglauk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.