We present theoretical and empirical results on consumption during an unemployment spell. The theory model extends the conventional intertemporal allocation model to take explicit account of the fact that households buy clothing and small durable goods (such as pillows and plates) that are...

We use a survey of unemployed people to examine how a job loss impacts on household expenditures. The principle focus is on the effect of the level of income replacement provided by Unemployment Insurance. We restrict attention to a sub-sample of respondents who are still in their first spell of...

A principal motivation for Unemployment Insurance (UI) schemes is to support consumption smoothing. The magnitude of the consumption smoothing benefits of UI depend on the extent to which households are liquidity constrained. We use a survey of unemployed people to examine how a job loss impacts...

Recent research has demonstrated that some households cut back on expenditures in an unemployment spell. Moreover, some of these households respond to variation in the transitory income provided by unemployment insurance benefits. This suggests that these households are constrained in the sense...

Pension benefit guarantee policies have been introduced in several countries to pro- tect private pension plan members from the loss of income that would occur if a plan was underfunded when the sponsoring firm terminates a plan. Most of these public insurance schemes face financial dificulty...

Unemployment insurance is more valuable when self-insurance is more diffcult. Self-insurance is more viable when the cost of borrowing and the cost of saving are low. The cost of savings depends on the timing of income and the timing of needs, as well as private and market discount rates....

Pension benefit guarantee policies have been introduced in several countries to protect private pension plan members from the loss of income that would occur if a plan was underfunded when the sponsoring firm terminates a plan. Most of these public insurance schemes face financial difficulty and...

The paper investigates whether self-assessed health status (SAH) contains information about future mortality and morbidity, beyond the information that is contained in standard "observable" characteristics of individuals (including pre-existing diagnosed medical conditions). Using a ten-year...

A 1989 all-party motion of parliament called for the elimination of child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Despite a series of policy initiatives, recent reports suggest that the child poverty rate may now be comparable to that in 1989. The apparent persistence of child poverty in Canada...