In this paper, we explore the role of female labor supply as an insurance mechanism against idiosyncratic earnings risk within the family. We use a life-cycle model in which a unitary family makes consumption, saving, and labor supply decisions. Additional uncertainty increases female...

We investigate how households in temporarily straitened circumstances due to an unemployment spell cut back on expenditures and how they spend marginal dollars of unemployment insurance (UI) benefit. Our theoretical and empirical analyses emphasize the importance of allowing for the fact that...