1 Environmental Quality and Abatement in a Model of Growth and Endogenous Longevity *

I construct a model economy which incorporates capital accumulation, endogenous longevity and environmental quality. The analysis of the model shows that the interactions between the processes of capital formation and environmental quality, jointly determine both the long-run growth rate of the economy and the pattern of convergence towards the balanced growth path (i.e., monotonic or cyclical). Consequently, I argue that such interactions can provide a possible explanatory factor behind the, empirically observed, correlation of long-run growth with its short-term cycles. Furthermore, the model may capture the observed pattern whereby economic growth and mortality rates appear to be negatively related in the long-run, but positively related in the short-run