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Higher-Order Income Risk and Social Insurance Policy Over the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Rocio Madera

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Fatih Guvenen

    (University of Minnesota)

  • David Domeij

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

  • Christopher Busch

    (University of Cologne)

Abstract

This paper studies how higher-order income risk varies over the business cycle as well as the extent to which such risks can be smoothed within households or with government social insurance policies. To provide a broad perspective on these questions, we study panel data on individuals and households from the United States, Germany, and Sweden, covering more than three decades of data for each country. We find that the underlying variation in higher-order risk is remarkably similar across these countries that differ in many details of their labor markets. In particular, in all three countries, the variance of earnings shocks is almost entirely constant over the business cycle, whereas the skewness of these shocks becomes much more negative in recessions. Government provided insurance, in the form of unemployment insurance, welfare benefits, aid to low income households, and the like, plays a more important role reducing downside risk in all three countries; the effectiveness is weakest in the United States, and most pronounced in Germany. For Sweden, we find that insurance provided within households plays a similar role. We calculate that the welfare benefits of social insurance policies for stabilizing higher-order income risk over the business cycle range from 1% of annual consumption for the United States to 5% for Germany.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocio Madera & Fatih Guvenen & David Domeij & Christopher Busch, 2015. "Higher-Order Income Risk and Social Insurance Policy Over the Business Cycle," 2015 Meeting Papers 712, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:sed015:712
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shin, Donggyun & Solon, Gary, 2011. "Trends in men's earnings volatility: What does the Panel Study of Income Dynamics show?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 973-982, August.
    2. Fatih Guvenen & Serdar Ozkan & Jae Song, 2014. "The Nature of Countercyclical Income Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(3), pages 621-660.
    3. Kjetil Storesletten & Chris I. Telmer & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Cyclical Dynamics in Idiosyncratic Labor Market Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(3), pages 695-717, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jeanne Commault, 2016. "How Does Nondurable Consumption Respond To Transitory Income Shocks? Reconciling Natural Experiments and Structural Estimations," Working Papers hal-01328904, HAL.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Fatih Guvenen & Sergio Salgado, 2016. "Skewed Business Cycles," 2016 Meeting Papers 1621, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Fatih Guvenen, 2015. "The Research Agenda: Fatih Guvenen on Findings from Big Data on Income Inequality and Income Uncertainty," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), April.

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