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Liquidity and Insurance for the Unemployed

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Author Info
Robert Shimer
Ivan Werning

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Abstract

We study unemployment insurance for workers who sequentially sample job opportunities. We focus on the optimal timing of benefits and the desirability of allowing borrowing and saving. When workers have constant absolute risk aversion, a simple policy is optimal: a constant benefit during unemployment, a constant tax during employment, and free access to a riskless asset. With constant relative risk aversion, optimal policy involves nearly constant benefits; more elaborate policies offer minuscule welfare gains. We highlight two distinct policy roles: ensuring workers have sufficient liquidity to smooth their consumption; and providing unemployment subsidies to insure against uncertain spell duration. (JEL J65)

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1257/aer.98.5.1922
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File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=AER&volume=98&issue=5&article=7&issue_date=December2008
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Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 98 (2008)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 1922-42
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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:98:y:2008:i:5:p:1922-42

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Martin Feldstein, 2005. "Rethinking Social Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 1-24, March. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Allen, Franklin, 1985. "Repeated principal-agent relationships with lending and borrowing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 27-31. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Martin Feldstein & Daniel Altman, 1998. "Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts," NBER Working Papers 6860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Mikhail Golosov & Narayana Kocherlakota & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2003. "Optimal Indirect and Capital Taxation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(3), pages 569-587, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Meyer, Bruce D, 1990. "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Spells," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 757-82, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Gruber, Jonathan, 1997. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 192-205, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Spear, Stephen E & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1987. "On Repeated Moral Hazard with Discounting," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(4), pages 599-617, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Katz, Lawrence F. & Meyer, Bruce D., 1990. "The impact of the potential duration of unemployment benefits on the duration of unemployment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 45-72, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Martin Feldstein & James M. Poterba, 1984. "Unemployment Insurance and Reservation Wages," NBER Working Papers 1011, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Prescott, Edward C., 1974. "Equilibrium search and unemployment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 188-209, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Steven Shavell & Laurence Weiss, 1978. "The Optimal Payment of Unemployment Insurance Benefits over Time," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 503, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  13. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages C1-33, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Jonathan Gruber, 1994. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 4750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Pissarides, Christopher A, 1985. "Short-run Equilibrium Dynamics of Unemployment Vacancies, and Real Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 676-90, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1997. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 412-38, April.
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  18. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Aiyagari, S Rao, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 659-84, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. McCall, John J, 1970. "Economics of Information and Job Search," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 113-26, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Wang, Cheng & Williamson, Stephen, 1996. "Unemployment insurance with moral hazard in a dynamic economy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-41, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Cole, Harold L & Kocherlakota, Narayana R, 2001. "Efficient Allocations with Hidden Income and Hidden Storage," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 68(3), pages 523-42, July.
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Rasmus Lentz, 2009. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance in an Estimated Job Search Model with Savings," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 37-57, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. David Card & Raj Chetty & Andrea Weber, 2006. "Cash-on-Hand and Competing Models of Intertemporal Behavior: New Evidence from the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 12639, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Patrick Kehoe & Varadarajan V. Chari, 2006. "Modern Macroeconomics in Practice: How Theory is Shaping Policy," NBER Working Papers 12476, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Nicola Pavoni & Giovanni L. Violante, 2005. "Optimal welfare-to-work programs," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 143, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Langot, François & Ménard, Sébastien & Sopraseuth, Thepthida, 2009. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance for Older Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 4071, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  6. Pontus Rendahl, 2007. "Asset Based Unemployment Insurance," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/15, European University Institute. [Downloadable!]
  7. Robert Shimer & Ivan Werning, 2006. "Reservation Wages and Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 12618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Tomasz Sadzik & Yuliy Sannikov, 2009. "Dynamic Incentive Accounts," NBER Working Papers 15324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Robert Shimer & Iván Werning, 2006. "On the Optimal Timing of Benefits with Heterogeneous Workers and Human Capital Depreciation," NBER Working Papers 12230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Bulent Guler & Fatih Guvenen & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Joint-Search Theory: New Opportunities and New Frictions," NBER Working Papers 15011, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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