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...

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...

I use a unique data set of Canadian displaced workers to measure the effects of firm of employment on wages. This data set has the advantage of consisting of a sample of workers changing jobs for reasons (product demand shifts or technological changes) that are largely orthogonal to their...