IMF Working Papers

Search in the Labor Market under Imperfectly Insurable Income Risk

By Mauro F Roca

September 1, 2009

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Mauro F Roca. Search in the Labor Market under Imperfectly Insurable Income Risk, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2009) accessed November 23, 2024
Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper develops a general equilibrium model with unemployment and noncooperative wage determination to analyze the importance of incomplete markets when risk-averse agents are subject to idiosyncratic employment shocks. A version of the model calibrated to the U.S. shows that market incompleteness affects individual behavior and aggregate conditions: it reduces wages and unemployment but increases vacancies. Additionally, the model explains the average level of unemployment insurance observed in the U.S. A key mechanism is the joint influence of imperfect insurance and risk aversion in the wage bargaining. The paper also proposes a novel solution to solve this heterogeneous-agent model.

Subject: Consumption, Insurance, Labor markets, Unemployment, Wages

Keywords: Labor market, Replacement ratio, Unemployment insurance, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    37

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

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  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2009/188

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2009188

  • ISBN:

    9781451873351

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941