Recessions and expansions are often caused or reinforced by developments in private consumption - the largest component of aggregate demand - which, as a result, varies over the business cycle. As such, an accurate measurement of the cyclical component of consumption and an understanding of its...

The measurement of health disparities is a key component for the assessment of health systems. One aspect of these disparities - which hitherto has received limited attention - is the risk people face about their future health. This paper integrates risk into the standard inequality measurement...

This paper distinguishes uncertainty types that differ continuously with respect to the degree to which uncertainty affects the optimal price/price markup or optimal quantity. A monopoly example is used to show that seemingly strong assumptions on functional forms can represent a wide variety of...

We develop a novel argument why better public information can help countries to insure against idiosyncratic risk. Representative agents of developing and industrial countries receive public and private signals on their future income realization and engage in risk-sharing contracts with limited...

The paper addresses two related issues: the optimal intergenerational sharing of laborproductivity risks, through a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) social security, and the mix ofPAYG and savings for retirement provision in a small open economy. It shows that partial contingency of the social security on...