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Life-Cycle Portfolios, Unemployment and Human Capital Loss

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio C. Bagliano

    (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy)

  • Carolina Fugazza

    (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy)

  • Giovanna Nicodano

    (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy)

Abstract

The recent Great Recession highlighted that long-term unemployment spells may entail persistent losses in workers' human capital. This paper extends the life-cycle model of savings and portfolio choice with unemployment risk, by allowing the possibility of permanent reductions in expected earnings following long-term unemployment. The optimal risky portfolio share becomes flat in age due to the resolution of uncertainty about future returns to human capital that occurs as the worker ages. This may help explaining the observed relatively flat, or only moderately increasing, risky share of investors during working life, and have important consequences for the design of optimal life-cycle portfolios by investment funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio C. Bagliano & Carolina Fugazza & Giovanna Nicodano, 2019. "Life-Cycle Portfolios, Unemployment and Human Capital Loss," Working papers 060, Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
  • Handle: RePEc:tur:wpapnw:060
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    Cited by:

    1. Bagliano, Fabio C. & Fugazza, Carolina & Nicodano, Giovanna, 2021. "Life-cycle welfare losses from rules-of-thumb asset allocation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    2. Holzmann, Robert & Ayuso, Mercedes & Alaminos, Estefanía & Bravo, Jorge Miguel, 2019. "Life Cycle Saving and Dissaving Revisited across Three-Tiered Income Groups: Starting Hypotheses, Refinement through Literature Review, and Ideas for Empirical Testing," IZA Discussion Papers 12655, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Branger, Nicole & Larsen, Linda Sandris & Munk, Claus, 2019. "Hedging recessions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Marina Malkina, 2019. "Determinants of Private Savings in the Form of Bank Deposits: A Case Study on Regions of the Russian Federation," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-22, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    life-cycle portfolio choice; unemployment risk; human capital depreciation; age rule.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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