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Author: Raj Chetty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Risk assessment
Languages : en
Pages : 118
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Book Description
Author: Raj Chetty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Risk assessment
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Raj Chetty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
Many households devote a large fraction of their budgets to "consumption commitments" -- goods that involve transaction costs and are infrequently adjusted. This paper characterizes risk preferences in an expected utility model with commitments. We show that commitments affect risk preferences in two ways: (1) they amplify risk aversion with respect to moderate-stake shocks and (2) they create a motive to take large-payoff gambles. The model thus helps resolve two basic puzzles in expected utility theory: the discrepancy between moderate-stake and large-stake risk aversion and lottery playing by insurance buyers. We discuss applications of the model such as the optimal design of social insurance and tax policies, added worker effects in labor supply, and portfolio choice. Using event studies of unemployment shocks, we document evidence consistent with the consumption adjustment patterns implied by the model.
Author: Raj Chetty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Unemployed
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
Studies of the consumption-smoothing benefits of unemployment insurance (UI) have found that the optimal benefit level is very small, perhaps even 0, for conventional levels of risk aversion. In this paper, I derive a formula for the optimal benefit rate in terms of income and price elasticities of unemployment durations, directly inferring risk aversion for the unemployed from their behavioral responses to UI benefits. The optimal rate of social insurance is shown to depend positively on the size of the income elasticity and negatively on the size of the substitution elasticity. I estimate these elasticities using semi-parametric hazard models and variation in UI laws across states and over time. The estimates indicate that income effects account for 70% of the effect of UI on unemployment durations, and yield an optimal replacement rate around 50% of pre-unemployment wages. These results challenge the prevailing view that social safety nets provide minimal welfare gains at a large efficiency cost.
Author: Robert Shimer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
We study the optimal design of unemployment insurance for workers sampling job opportunities over time. We focus on the optimal timing of benefits and the desirability of allowing workers to freely access a riskless asset. When workers have constant absolute risk aversion preferences, it is optimal to use a very simple policy: a constant benefit during unemployment, a constant tax during employment that does not depend on the duration of the spell, and free access to savings using a riskless asset. Away from this benchmark, for constant relative risk aversion preferences, the welfare gains of more elaborate policies are minuscule. Our results highlight two largely distinct roles for policy toward the unemployed: (a) ensuring workers have sufficient liquidity to smooth their consumption; and (b) providing unemployment benefits that serve as insurance against the uncertain duration of unemployment spells.
Author: A. Postlewaite
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 41
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Book Description
We examine an economy in which the cost of consuming some goods can be reduced by making commitments to consumption levels independent of the state. For example, it is cheaper to produce housing services via owner-occupied than rented housing, but the transactions costs associated with the former prompt relatively inflexible housing consumption paths. We show that consumption commitments can cause risk-neutral consumers to care about risk, creating incentives to both insure risks and bunch uninsured risks together. For example, workers may prefer to avoid wage risk while bearing an unemployment risk that is concentrated in as few states as possible.
Author: Andreas Pollak
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161493041
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Designing a good unemployment insurance scheme is a delicate matter. In a system with no or little insurance, households may be subject to a high income risk, whereas excessively generous unemployment insurance systems are known to lead to high unemployment rates and are costly both from a fiscal perspective and for society as a whole. Andreas Pollak investigates what an optimal unemployment insurance system would look like, i.e. a system that constitutes the best possible compromise between income security and incentives to work. Using theoretical economic models and complex numerical simulations, he studies the effects of benefit levels and payment durations on unemployment and welfare. As the models allow for considerable heterogeneity of households, including a history-dependent labor productivity, it is possible to analyze how certain policies affect individuals in a specific age, wealth or skill group. The most important aspect of an unemployment insurance system turns out to be the benefits paid to the long-term unemployed. If this parameter is chosen too high, a large number of households may get caught in a long spell of unemployment with little chance of finding work again. Based on the predictions in these models, the so-called "Hartz IV" labor market reform recently adopted in Germany should have highly favorable effects on the unemployment rates and welfare in the long run.
Author: Amy Finkelstein
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538685
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161
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Book Description
Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice
Author: John A. Nyman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019768792X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
"This book holds that the demand for insurance is best understood, not by focusing on risk preferences, but by focusing on the additional income, the states of the world that trigger the income transfer from the insurer, and the value of income (and consumption) in those states. It is unlikely that demand can be understood if the analyst limits the gain from insurance to coverage of the uninsured loss alone. It is also unlikely that the demand can be understood if the analyst limits the analysis to a movement along a static "risk averse" utility or value function, rather than acknowledging that a shift of this function, and thus in the utility or value of additional income, often coincides with the occurrence of the event that triggers the payout"--
Author: Alan J. Auerbach
Publisher: Newnes
ISBN: 0444537600
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 497
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Book Description
In the Handbook of Public Economics, vol. 5, top scholars provide context and order to new research about mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications. These fundamental subjects follow the recent, steady movement away from rational decision-making and toward more personalized approaches to tax generation and expenditure, especially in terms of the use of psychological methods and financial incentives. Closely scrutinized subjects include new research in empirical (instead of theoretical) public finance, the methods for measuring taxes (both in revenue generation and expenditure), and the roles that taxes play in specific settings, such as emerging economies, urban settings, charitable giving, and among political entities (cities, counties, states, countries). Contributors look at both the "tax" and "expenditure" sides of public finance, emphasizing recent influences that psychology and philosophy have exerted in economics with articles on behavioral finance, charitable giving, and dynamic taxation. To a field enjoying rapid growth, their articles bring context and order, illuminating the mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications. - Editor Raj Chetty is the recipient of the 2013 John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association - Focuses on new approaches to both revenue generation and expenditures in public finance - Presents coherent summaries of subjects in public economics that stretch from methodologies to applications - Makes details about public economics accessible to scholars in fields outside economics
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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