Essays on Private Consumption Smoothing Mechanisms PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Essays on Private Consumption Smoothing Mechanisms PDF full book. Access full book title Essays on Private Consumption Smoothing Mechanisms by Kyle Frederic Herkenhoff. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Kyle Frederic Herkenhoff Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 234
Book Description
This dissertation studies the interaction between private consumption smoothing mechanisms and labor markets. Chapter 1 studies the growth in credit card access among the unemployed over the last 40 years and how this credit growth has impacted labor markets. I begin by developing a general equilibrium business cycle model with search in both the labor market and in the credit market. Calibrating to the observed path of credit between 1974 and 2012, I find that growth in credit card access can lead to deeper and longer recessions as well as moderately slower recoveries. Chapter 2, which is co-authored with Lee E. Ohanian, looks at the impact of foreclosure protection on unemployment during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Through a purely positive lens, we study and document the growing trend of mortgagors who skip mortgage payments as an extra source of ``informal'' unemployment insurance during the 2007 recession and the subsequent recovery. In a dynamic model, we capture this behavior by treating both delinquency and foreclosure not as one period events, but rather as protracted and potentially reversible episodes that influence job search behavior and wage acceptance decisions. After calibrating, we find that the observed foreclosure delays increase the unemployment rate by an additional 1/3%-3/4%. And finally, Chapter 3, which is co-authored with Lee E. Ohanian, Kris Gerardi, and Paul Willen, looks at the empirical determinants of default and provides a new suggestive measure of strategic default. In sharp contrast to prior studies that proxy for individual unemployment status using regional unemployment rates, we find that individual unemployment is the strongest predictor of default. We also find that only 13.9% of defaulters have both negative equity and enough liquid or illiquid assets to make 1 month's mortgage payment. This suggests that ``ruthless, '' or ``strategic'' default during the 2007-2009 recession is relatively rare, and suggests that policies designed to promote employment, such as payroll tax cuts, are most likely to stem defaults in the long run rather than policies that temporarily modify mortgages.
Author: Kyle Frederic Herkenhoff Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 234
Book Description
This dissertation studies the interaction between private consumption smoothing mechanisms and labor markets. Chapter 1 studies the growth in credit card access among the unemployed over the last 40 years and how this credit growth has impacted labor markets. I begin by developing a general equilibrium business cycle model with search in both the labor market and in the credit market. Calibrating to the observed path of credit between 1974 and 2012, I find that growth in credit card access can lead to deeper and longer recessions as well as moderately slower recoveries. Chapter 2, which is co-authored with Lee E. Ohanian, looks at the impact of foreclosure protection on unemployment during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Through a purely positive lens, we study and document the growing trend of mortgagors who skip mortgage payments as an extra source of ``informal'' unemployment insurance during the 2007 recession and the subsequent recovery. In a dynamic model, we capture this behavior by treating both delinquency and foreclosure not as one period events, but rather as protracted and potentially reversible episodes that influence job search behavior and wage acceptance decisions. After calibrating, we find that the observed foreclosure delays increase the unemployment rate by an additional 1/3%-3/4%. And finally, Chapter 3, which is co-authored with Lee E. Ohanian, Kris Gerardi, and Paul Willen, looks at the empirical determinants of default and provides a new suggestive measure of strategic default. In sharp contrast to prior studies that proxy for individual unemployment status using regional unemployment rates, we find that individual unemployment is the strongest predictor of default. We also find that only 13.9% of defaulters have both negative equity and enough liquid or illiquid assets to make 1 month's mortgage payment. This suggests that ``ruthless, '' or ``strategic'' default during the 2007-2009 recession is relatively rare, and suggests that policies designed to promote employment, such as payroll tax cuts, are most likely to stem defaults in the long run rather than policies that temporarily modify mortgages.
Author: Claire H. Hollweg Publisher: ISBN: Category : Consumption (Economics) Languages : en Pages : 404
Book Description
This thesis explores the transmission of economic shocks. Although the thesis is structured as four stand-alone chapters, the common theme throughout is identifying the impact of economic shocks: either idiosyncratic shocks at the household-level, macroeconomic shocks emanating from foreign countries and transmitted through global markets, or countries' own macroeconomic policy changes (for example, structural reforms or trade reforms). Each chapter applies a different empirical methodology, including structural estimation, reduced form instrumental variables estimation, and growth accounting. Finally, each chapter utilizes a different dataset and country sample selection. While one chapter uses a micro dataset from household-level surveys, others use cross-country datasets at the aggregate country level. Both developed and developing countries are considered in the analyses. The thesis begins by exploring the relationship between idiosyncratic income changes and consumption changes of Australian households over the period 2001-2009. A major contribution to the literature is the use of the Household Income and Labor Dynamics of Australia dataset that includes panels on both consumption and income data. For the entire sample of Australian households, nearly full consumption smoothing exists against transitory shocks. Although less consumption smoothing exists against permanent shocks, Australian households still achieve a high degree of consumption smoothing against highly persistent shocks, particularly when compared to households in the United States. Durable purchases, female labor supply, and taxes and transfers are all found to act as consumption-smoothing mechanisms. The thesis then explores the impact of structural reforms on a comprehensive list of macro-level labor-market outcomes, including the unemployment rate, employment levels, average wage index, and labor force participation rates. After documenting the average trends across countries in the labor-market outcomes up to ten years on either side of each country's reform year, fixed-effects ordinary least squares as well as instrumental variables regressions are performed to account for likely endogeneity of structural reforms to labor-market outcomes. Overall the results suggest that structural reforms lead to positive outcomes for labor, particularly for informal workers. Redistributive effects in favor of workers, along the lines of the Stolper-Samuelson effect, may be at work. The thesis then explores the impact of trade liberalization on macroeconomic estimates of productivity using Brazil as a case study. Trade and economic reforms can affect the price of capital goods relative to other tradable and especially non-tradable goods. If the price of capital investments rises more than the price of all goods and services in the economy, mismeasurement of the price of capital caused by the divergence in these relative prices would result in an overestimated capital stock and underestimated TFP. This chapter overcomes this bias by constructing a capital price index using international trade data on capital goods' unit values then adjusts the index to reflect domestic Brazilian prices. A significant recovery between 1992 and 2006 is observed, highlighting the important role of the price deflator in growth accounting. The final chapter of this thesis proposes a methodology to measure the vulnerability of a country through exports to fluctuations in the economic activity of foreign markets. Export vulnerability depends first on the overall level of export exposure, measured as the share of exports to a foreign market in gross domestic product, and second on the sensitivity of exports to fluctuations in foreign gross domestic product. This sensitivity is captured by estimating origin-destination specific elasticities of exports with respect to changes in foreign gross domestic product using a gravity model of trade. Although the results suggest differences in elasticity estimates across regions as well as product categories, the principal source of international heterogeneity in export vulnerability results from differences in export exposure to global markets.
Author: Eksten Itay Saporta Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This dissertation studies micro and macro consumption and labor supply behavior. The first two essays study the response of consumption to income shocks and to job loss events, and draw implications to social insurance design. The last two essays turn to the macro picture, studying the behavior of aggregate consumption in the Great Recession, and exploring sources of the high unemployment observed during and in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The first essay is motivated by the documented empirical fact that job loss is associated with both pre- and post-job loss declines in hourly wages and earnings. Using recent data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I show that consumption dynamics mirror these wage dynamics. To account for the consumption dynamics in the data I introduce a correlation between individual hourly wages and job loss into a life-cycle model with self insurance (through savings), social insurance, and endogenous unemployment durations. I find that this model is able to replicate the joint dynamics of wages, job loss and consumption that we observe in the data. I then show that accounting for the correlation between wages and job loss has important implications for the optimal design of unemployment insurance (UI). The consumption smoothing benefits of unemployment insurance are larger, and the cost of insurance lower, than suggested when this correlation is absent. Thus, while a model that assumes away these correlations yields optimal UI replacement rates close to zero, a model that incorporates the correlations predicts optimal rates of 0.54, slightly higher than the current US level. In the second essay we examine the link between wage inequality and consumption inequality using a life cycle model that incorporates household consumption and family labor supply decisions. We focus on the importance of family labor supply as an insurance mechanism to wage shocks and find strong evidence of smoothing of male's and female's permanent shocks to wages. Once family labor supply, assets and taxes are properly accounted for there is little evidence of additional insurance. In the third essay we review the evidence on changes in consumer spending during the Great Recession. We point out three distinctive features of consumption in the Great Recession. First, the drop in consumption was deep and persistent. Consumption per capita fell monotonically throughout the recession showing an overall decline greater than 4 percent from peak to trough. Spending on nondurables and (especially) services fell significantly compared to previous recessions. Second, consumption fell more than disposable income, partly as a result of an increase in government transfers to households. Third, the varying impact the recession has had across age, race, education and wealth groups resulted in a decline in consumption inequality. The last essay studies the role of geographic mobility in explaining the high levels of unemployment during and after the Great Recession. We find that the effect of mobility is always small: Using pre-recession mobility rates, decreased mobility can account for only an 11 basis points increase in the unemployment rate over the period. Using dynamics of renter geographical mobility in this period to calculate homeowner counterfactual mobility, delivers similar results. Using the highest mobility rate observed in the data, reduced mobility accounts for only a 33 basis points increase in the unemployment rate.
Author: Davide Furceri Publisher: International Monetary Fund ISBN: 1484334205 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 34
Book Description
The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area and whether a supranational fiscal risk sharing mechanism could insure countries against very severe downturns. Using an unbalanced panel of 15 euro area countries over the period 1979-2010, the results of the paper show that: (i) the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area is significantly lower than in existing federations (such as the U.S. and Germany) and (ii) it falls sharply in severe downturns just when it is needed most; (iii) a supranational fiscal stabilization mechanism, financed by a relatively small contribution, would be able to fully insure euro area countries against very severe, persistent and unanticipated downturns.
Author: Jonathan Gruber Publisher: ISBN: Category : Consumption (Economics) Languages : en Pages : 58
Book Description
While there has been considerable research on the disincentive effects of cash welfare under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, there is little evidence on the benefits of the program for single mothers and their children. One potential benefit of this program is that it provides short-run consumption insurance for women at the point that they become single mothers. This is only true, however, to the extent that the program is not crowding out other sources of support, such as own savings, labor supply, or transfers from others. I assess the importance of this insurance mechanism by measuring the extent to which AFDC smooths the consumption of women who transition to single motherhood. I use longitudinal data on family structure and consumption expenditures on food and housing from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), matched to information on the welfare benefits available in each state and year over the 1968-1985 period. I find that raising potential benefits by one dollar raises the food and housing consumption of all women who become single mothers (and their families) by 30 cents. This estimate implies that for each dollar of AFDC received by this population their consumption of these categories of goods rises by up to 95 cents. This consumption smoothing benefit appears to be larger for women who become single mothers through marital dissolution, rather than through out-of-wedlock childbearing; this is due to increased housing expenditures of the former group but not of the latter.
Author: Mr.Matthieu Bellon Publisher: International Monetary Fund ISBN: 1513527010 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 41
Book Description
Economic volatility remains a fact of life in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). Household-level shocks create large consumption fluctuations, raising the incidence of poverty. Drawing on micro-level data from South Africa and Tanzania, we examine the vulnerability to shocks across household types (e.g. by education, ethnic group, and economic activity) and we quantify the impact that reducing consumption volatility would have on aggregate poverty. We then discuss coverage of consumption insurance mechanisms, including financial access and transfers. Country characteristics crucially determine which household-level shocks are most prevalent and which consumption-smoothing mechanisms are available. In Tanzania, agricultural shocks are an important source of consumption risk as two thirds of households are involved in some level of agricultural production. For South Africa, we focus on labor market risk proxied by transitions from formal employment to informal work or unemployment. We find that access to credit, when available, and government transfers can effectively mitigate labor market shocks.
Author: Kyle Frederic Herkenhoff
Author: Kyle Frederic Herkenhoff
Author: Francisco Torralba
Author: Satyajit Dutt
Author: Claire H. Hollweg
Author: Leonardo Leiderman
Author: Eksten Itay Saporta
Author: Firman Witoelar
Author: Davide Furceri
Author: Jonathan Gruber
Author: Mr.Matthieu Bellon