Productivity Risk and Employment Risk Over the Life Cycle

整个生命周期的生产力风险和就业风险

• 批准号: 0453119
• 负责人: Luigi Pistaferri
• 金额: $ 10.54万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-03-01 至 2007-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0453119&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Productivity; Risk; Employment; Over; Life

ABSTRACTProp ID: SES-0453119P I: Pistaferri, Luigi Organization: Stanford University Title: Productivity Risk and Employment Risk Over the Life Cycle Household spending is the driving force behind economic booms and recessions. Understanding the determinants of consumption is therefore of utmost importance. This proposal will look at the effect of labor market risks on household consumption and saving. Consumers who perceive to live in risky times may behave cautiously and defer spending; they may also respond to risk by working longer hours. The aggregate and welfare effects of risk may therefore be substantial.More specifically, the proposal clarifies the distinction between the various kinds of risks that workers face in the labor market. It distinguishes between productivity risk and unemployment risk. This distinction is often not well understood. Productivity risk is individual-specific uncertainty that exists regardless of the employer's characteristics. For example, health shocks affect individual productivity and hence wages in all kinds of jobs. Unemployment risk captures instead the uncertainty about having a job. This includes the possibility of firm bankruptcy, the risk of being laid off and that of not receiving offers while unemployed. Moreover, if different firms pay different wages, unemployment risk will be magnified by firm heterogeneity, because unemployed workers may reject offers from bad firms and stay unemployed longer. The proposal also aims at quantifying the extent of productivity risk and unemployment risk using individual panel data. Correct identification of the two risks depends crucially on the assumptions one makes about the economic environment confronted by workers. Simple models may lead to wrong inference concerning the quantitative importance of the two risks. For example, suppose one makes the standard assumptions that job offers are received with certainty and all firms offer the same wage. In this case there will be no unemployment risk as such because unemployment would be entirely voluntary. To make the distinction between productivity risk and unemployment risk meaningful the author proposes a model with saving and endogenous labor market participation and intra-firm mobility. He also allows for government insurance programs such as unemployment and disability insurance, and the Food Stamp programs, so that behavioral responses to government insurance are built in his model through changes in participation and changes in savings. The exercise we propose may have important implications. When formulating public policy it is imperative to have an idea of what risks matter. With a quantitative assessment of the risks facing agents it is possible to use economic theory to guide the construction of optimal social insurance arrangements.Broader impacts: Once the various sources of risk have been identified, one can simulate individual saving behavior and measure the welfare costs of the various risks. These simulations give an indication of the extent of precautionary behavior (both precautionary saving and precautionary labor supply). They also raise a number of questions that can be addressed: How much would individuals be willing to pay to avoid the various risks? How much of the precautionary response is due to unemployment risk and how much to productivity risk. The investigator plans to evaluate the welfare benefits of existing government insurance programs, as well as those of proposed reforms and of alternative programs.

[摘要]作者：Pistaferri， Luigi。机构：斯坦福大学。题目：生命周期中的生产率风险和就业风险：家庭支出是经济繁荣和衰退背后的驱动力。因此，了解消费的决定因素至关重要。该提案将着眼于劳动力市场风险对家庭消费和储蓄的影响。认为生活在危险时期的消费者可能会谨慎行事，推迟消费；他们也可能通过延长工作时间来应对风险。因此，风险的总体效应和福利效应可能是巨大的。更具体地说，该提案澄清了工人在劳动力市场上面临的各种风险之间的区别。它区分了生产率风险和失业风险。这种区别往往不被很好地理解。生产力风险是个体特有的不确定性，与雇主的特点无关。例如，健康冲击影响个人生产力，从而影响各种工作的工资。失业风险指的是找工作的不确定性。这包括公司破产的可能性、被解雇的风险以及失业期间得不到工作机会的风险。此外，如果不同的企业支付不同的工资，失业风险将被企业异质性放大，因为失业工人可能会拒绝来自糟糕企业的工作机会，并失业更长时间。该提案还旨在利用个人面板数据量化生产率风险和失业风险的程度。对这两种风险的正确识别，关键取决于人们对工人所面临的经济环境所做的假设。简单的模型可能导致对这两种风险的定量重要性的错误推断。例如，假设一个人做了一个标准的假设，即工作机会是确定的，所有的公司都提供相同的工资。在这种情况下，不会有失业风险，因为失业完全是自愿的。为了使生产率风险和失业风险之间的区别有意义，作者提出了一个具有储蓄和内生劳动力市场参与以及企业内部流动性的模型。他还考虑了政府保险项目，如失业和残疾保险，以及食品券项目，因此，通过参与和储蓄的变化，行为对政府保险的反应建立在他的模型中。我们提出的做法可能具有重要意义。在制定公共政策时，必须了解哪些风险是重要的。对代理人所面临的风险进行定量评估，就有可能运用经济学理论来指导最优社会保险安排的构建。更广泛的影响：一旦确定了各种风险来源，人们就可以模拟个人储蓄行为，并衡量各种风险的福利成本。这些模拟表明了预防性行为的程度（预防性储蓄和预防性劳动力供应）。它们也提出了一些可以解决的问题：人们愿意支付多少钱来避免各种风险？预防性反应有多少是由于失业风险，又有多少是由于生产力风险。调查人员计划评估现有政府保险项目的福利，以及那些拟议的改革和替代项目。