The Irreversibility of Consumption as a Source of Endogenous Demand-driven Economic Growth

In advanced capitalist economies, the asymmetry of aggregate consumption, which decreases to a lesser extent during recessions than it increases during expansions, implies an endogenous source of growth and accumulation. This thesis, put forward in a previous paper co-authored with Pierangelo Garegnani, is here scrutinized in detail and developed in terms of more general assumptions. The connection with similar assumptions on consumption to be found in the literature is also examined and some implications of the hypothesis are drawn regarding the significance of the savings rate.