Recent research has demonstrated that some households cut back on expenditures in an unemployment spell. Moreover, some of these households respond to variation in the transitory income provided by unemployment insurance benefits. This suggests that these households are constrained in the sense...

If access to credit is limited (especially when young or unemployed) but ”bad” jobs are easy to come by, then job seekers might use short term employment in undesirable jobs as a way to finance consumption during subsequent unemployed search for a “good” job. In this paper we explore...

In many research areas it is desirable to have information on household total expenditure (‘consumption’). We draw evidence from several sources on the usefulness of recall consumption questions. We conclude that valid information can be collected by adding specific recall questions to...

This paper investigates the search and consumption behavior of workers as they move between readily available low wage employment and uncertain search for a high wage job. Analytic results derived from our model include: (1) voluntary planned quits occur in a cyclical pattern, (2) consumption...

The costs of involuntary job loss are of substantial research and policy interest. We consider the measurement of the cost of job displacement with household expenditure data. With a Canadian panel survey of individuals who experienced a job separation, we compare the consumption growth of...

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...

The costs of involuntary job loss are an object of substantial research and policy interest. We consider the measurement of the costs of job displacement with household expenditure data. We explicitly derive a "difference-in-difference" estimator from a structural life cycle model. This exercise...

In many research areas it is desirable to have information on household total expenditure ('consumption'). We draw evidence from several sources on the usefulness of recall consumption questions. We conclude that valid information can be collected by adding specific recall questions to general...

Robust and reliable measures of consumer expenditures are essential for analyzing aggregate economic activity and for measuring differences in household circumstances. Many countries, including the United States, are embarking on ambitious projects to redesign surveys of consumer expenditures,...