We show that a calibrated life-cycle two-earner household model with endogenous labor supply can rationalize the extent of consumption insurance against shocks to male and female wages, as estimated empirically by Blundell, Pistaferri and Saporta-Eksten (2016) in U.S. data. With additively...

Using linked employer-employee data for the U.S., we examine whether shocks to firm revenues are transmitted to the earnings of continuing employees. While full insurance is rejected, the elasticity of worker earnings with respect to persistent shocks in firm revenues is small and consistent...

In this paper we examine the link between wage inequality and consumption inequality using a life cycle model that incorporates household consumption and family labor supply decisions. We derive analytical expressions based on approximations for the dynamics of consumption, hours, and earnings...

The stochastic process for earnings is the key element of incomplete markets models in modern quantitative macroeconomics. We show that a simple modification of the canonical process used in the literature leads to a dramatic improvement in the measurement of earnings dynamics in administrative...

This paper investigates the effect of a large negative agricultural shock, the boll weevil, on black-white inequality in the first half of the twentieth century. To do this we use complete count census data to generate a linked sample of fathers and their sons. We find that the boll weevil...

This paper uses data on inequality within U.S. states to test hypotheses about the sources of rising wage inequality during the 1970s and 1980s. State labor markets are found to respond to local demand shocks in the short and medium run and to national (industry) demand shocks only after long...