data on households in five countries: Spain and Italy (the South), and Germany, Britain, and the US (the North). Our … empirical results indicate that an increase in the duration of unemployment spells of male household heads is associated with … indicate that in the South consumption should fall more than in the North when the male household head becomes unemployed. This …

aggregate evidence which supports this hypothesis for 12 European countries. We also give microeconometric evidence for Italy …, the single country for which we have access to household-specific information on job security and coresidence. It is a …