The Impacts of Predictable Income Volatility and Income Risk on Economic Outcomes and Behaviors

穷人的收入不仅低，而且不稳定和不可预测。尽管存在这种收入不稳定性及其对穷人福祉的潜在成本，但经济学家对这种不稳定性和不可预测性的影响的衡量是有限的。本研究将采用实地实验来研究收入不稳定性如何影响穷人的经济行为和福祉。该项目涉及实验性地操纵低工资劳动力在其他工作很少的时期对临时工的劳动力需求，然后研究收入不稳定对消费、储蓄、投资等活动的影响，以及调查家庭应对收入不稳定的策略。该研究还将收集个人对收入不稳定的感知成本的数据，以衡量他们为避免收入不稳定而支付的意愿。该项目将为稳定收入作为一项政策目标的重要性提供证据。这项研究的结果将为改善低收入工人生活的劳动力市场政策提供指导。这样做，将有助于确立美国在提高低收入工人生活水平方面的全球领导者地位。本研究将研究收入风险和可预测的收入波动对经济结果和福利的因果影响。为了产生收入不稳定性的外生变化，在没有其他选择的情况下，pi实验性地操纵了临时工的劳动力需求。RCT设计有三个分支：稳定(S)分支有固定的工资标准和工作日；可预测波动率（PV）部门的工资水平和工作日的波动将事先为工人所知，而风险收入（RI）部门的工资水平和工作日的波动将为工人所未知。这三个部门的预期工作日数和工资是相同的。除基线数据外，还将收集消费、支出、收入、储蓄和资产、贷款和债务、转移等高频面板数据。设计和实证分析将允许pi研究收入不稳定对消费水平和平滑的影响，并详细调查用于应对收入不稳定的策略。除了简化形式分析外，本研究还将估计一个结构模型来进行福利分析和模拟政策反事实。pi将通过激发个人为避免可预测的收入波动而支付的意愿，来衡量收入不稳定的感知福利成本。pi将使用结构模型进一步阐明机制，估计收入不稳定的福利成本，并模拟政策反事实。这项研究的结果将有助于指导劳动力市场政策，稳定工人收入，从而提高贫困工人的生活水平。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The income of poor people is not only low, but also unstable and unpredictable. Despite this income instability and its potential costs on the wellbeing of the poor, economists, measure of the effects of this instability and unpredictability is limited. This research will use field experiments to study how income instability affects the economic behavior and wellbeing of the poor. The project involves experimentally manipulating the labor demand for casual work of low wage labor during a period when little other work is available and then study the impact of income instability on consumption, savings, investment other activities as well as investigate the strategies households use to cope with income instability. The research will also collect data on individuals perceived costs of income instability to measure their willingness to pay to avoid income instability. The project will provide evidence on the importance of stabilizing incomes as a policy goal. The results of this research will provide guidance on labor market policies that will improve the lives of low-income workers. In so doing, it will help to establish the US as a global leader in improving the living standards of low-income workers.This research will study the causal effects of income risk and of predictable income volatility on economic outcomes and on welfare. To generate exogenous variation in income instability, the PIs experimentally manipulate the labor demand for casual work during a time when there are no alternatives. The RCT design has three arms: the Stable (S) arm has fixed pay scale and workdays; fluctuations in pay scale and workdays in the Predictable Volatility (PV) arm will be known in advance to workers while fluctuations in pay scale and workdays in the Risky Income (RI) arm will be unknown to the workers. The expected, number of workdays and pay of all three arms will be the same. Besides baseline data, high frequency panel data on consumption, expenditures, income, savings and assets, loans and debt, and transfers will be collected. The design and empirical analysis will allow the PIs to study the impact of income instability on consumption levels and smoothing and to investigate in detail the strategies used to cope with income instability. In addition to reduced-form analyses, the research will estimate a structural model to conduct a welfare analysis and simulate policy counterfactuals. The PIs will measure the perceived welfare costs of income instability by eliciting individuals’ willingness to pay to avoid predictable income volatility. The PIs will use the structural model to shed further light on mechanisms, to estimate the welfare costs of income instability, and to simulate policy counterfactuals. The results of this research will help guide labor market policies that stabilizes worker incomes and thus improve the living standards of the working poor.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.