Income Insurance and the Equilibrium Term-Structure of Equity

Output, wages and dividends feature term-structures of variance-ratios respectively flat, increasing and decreasing. Income insurance from shareholders to workers empirically and theoretically explains these term-structures. Risk sharing smooths wages but only concerns transitory risk and, hence, enhances the short-run dividend risk. A simple general equilibrium model, where labor rigidity affects dividend dynamics and the price of short-run risk, reconciles standard asset pricing facts with the term-structures of equity premium and volatility and those of macroeconomic variables, at odds in leading models. Consistently, actual