In this paper we use Norwegian tax data and a novel natural experiment to isolate the impact of job loss risk on saving behavior. We find that a one percentage point increase in job loss risk increases liquid savings by roughly 1.2 - 2.0 percent. Further, we show that employment falls in...

I structurally estimate an incomplete markets life-cycle model with endogenous labor supply using data on the joint distribution of wages, hours, and consumption. The model is successful at matching the evolution of both the first and second moments of the data over the life cycle. The key...

How do labor market reforms affect international competitiveness and net foreign assets? To answer this question, we build a two-region RBC model with labor market frictions, idiosyncratic consumption risk, and limited cross-sectional heterogeneity to establish a direct link between labor market...

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) and risk aversion on savings separately and determine which coefficient is more important factor for precautionary savings. This is an important question since a significant fraction of...

This paper provides a tractable continuous-time constant-absolute-risk averse (CARA)-Gaussian framework to quantitatively explore how the preference for robustness (RB) affects the interest rate, the dynamics of consumption and income, and the welfare costs of model uncertainty in general...

We consider the interaction between the risk of unemployment, random house prices, consumption and savings. A critical decision is that of refinancing house purchase, up to 100% mortgages are possible. There is also a fixed transaction cost of refinancing. In a CARA framework we derive the value...

This paper quantifies the size of precautionary savings implied by a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents when explicitly considering the labor supply decision of households. I find that precautionary savings are smaller than if they were measured by use of a model economy...

This paper quantifies the macroeconomic implications of the lack of insurance against idiosyncratic labor market risk. I show that in a model economy calibrated to observed individual level data, households make ample use of work effort as a consumption smoothing mechanism. As a consequence,...

Using a dynamic programming framework, in an intertemporal consumption-saving model with income uncertainty and durability, we have found a closed form solution for consumption. Also, the precautionary savings term arising from the riskiness of income is formally derived. With durability...

The interaction between housing wealth, the financial portfolio of the consumer and consumption is a live issue. Life cycle models with closed form solutions under uncertainty are hard to find. In this paper we find analytical solutions for the effects of house price uncertainty and employment...