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

贫困群众的收入不仅低，而且不稳定、不可预测。尽管这种收入不稳定及其对穷人福祉的潜在代价，但经济学家、经济学家和经济学家表示，对这种不稳定和不可预测的影响的衡量是有限的。这项研究将通过实地实验来研究收入不稳定如何影响穷人的经济行为和福祉。该项目涉及在几乎没有其他工作可用的时期，实验性地操纵低薪劳动力对临时工作的劳动力需求，然后研究收入不稳定对消费、储蓄、投资和其他活动的影响，以及调查家庭应对收入不稳定的策略。这项研究还将收集个人感受到的收入不稳定成本的数据，以衡量他们为避免收入不稳定而支付费用的意愿。该项目将为稳定收入作为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。通过这样做，它将有助于美国在提高低收入工人生活水平方面确立全球领先地位。这项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。为了在收入不稳定中产生外生差异，私人投资机构在别无选择的情况下，实验性地操纵临时工作的劳动力需求。RCT设计有三个手臂：稳定(S)手臂有固定的工资表和工作日；可预测波动率(PV)手臂中的工资等级和工作日的波动将提前为工人所知，而风险收入(RI)手臂中的工资等级和工作日的波动将不为工人所知。这三个部门的预期、工作天数和薪酬将是相同的。除基线数据外，还将收集关于消费、支出、收入、储蓄和资产、贷款和债务以及转移的高频小组数据。这项设计和实证分析将使消费物价指数能够研究收入不稳定对消费水平和平滑的影响，并详细调查应对收入不稳定的策略。除了简化形式的分析外，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。消费物价指数将通过激发个人支付意愿来衡量收入不稳定带来的福利成本，以避免可预测的收入波动。采购经理人指数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，以稳定工人收入，从而提高贫困劳动者的生活水平。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.