Download or read book Consumption Smoothing and the Welfare Cost of Uncertainty written by Yonas Alem and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Consumption Smoothing and the Welfare Cost of Uncertainty written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On the Welfare Costs of Consumption Uncertainty written by Robert J. Barro and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Satisfactory calculations of the welfare cost of aggregate consumption uncertainty require a framework that replicates major features of asset prices and returns, such as the high equity premium and low risk-free rate. A Lucas-tree model with rare but large disasters is such a framework. In a baseline simulation, the welfare cost of disaster risk is large -- society would be willing to lower real GDP by about 20% each year to eliminate all disaster risk, including wars. In contrast, the welfare cost from usual economic fluctuations is much smaller, though still important -- corresponding to lowering GDP by around 1.5% each year"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Download or read book Consumption Smoothing and the Welfare Consequences of Social Insurance in Developing Economies written by Raj Chetty and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of risk in developing economies have focused on consumption fluctuations as a measure of the value of insurance. A common view in the literature is that the welfare costs of risk and benefits of social insurance are small if income shocks do not cause large consumption fluctuations. We present a simple model showing that this conclusion is incorrect if the consumption path is smooth because individuals are highly risk averse. Empirical studies find that many households in developing countries rely on inefficient methods to smooth consumption, suggesting that they are indeed quite risk averse. Hence, social safety nets may be valuable in low-income economies even when consumption is not very sensitive to shocks.
Download or read book Risk Uncertainty and Profit written by Frank H. Knight and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.
Download or read book Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis written by Angus Deaton and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2001, staff from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met with the objective of strengthening collaboration between the two organizations in projects of civil service reform. This strengthened collaboration will have key benefits in ensuring consistency between the conflicting goals of the two organizations, establishing realistic objectives within the reform process, and maintaining a core set of wage and employment data. The principal conclusion arrived at was that World Bank and IMF staff should be engaging in collaboration earlier in the reform process. To guide the collaboration, six foundations were identified. These include: develop a medium-term fiscal framework; foster national ownership by making reforms politically feasible; focus and streamline conditionality; agree on sequencing and timing of reforms; and strengthen data collection. These principals will be tested for effectiveness in several focus countries.
Download or read book Understanding Consumption written by Angus Deaton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An overview of the saving and consumption patterns of households
Download or read book Capital Mobility written by Leonardo Leiderman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-07-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume examines capital mobility in both industrialised and developing countries.
Download or read book Robustness written by Lars Peter Hansen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The standard theory of decision making under uncertainty advises the decision maker to form a statistical model linking outcomes to decisions and then to choose the optimal distribution of outcomes. This assumes that the decision maker trusts the model completely. But what should a decision maker do if the model cannot be trusted? Lars Hansen and Thomas Sargent, two leading macroeconomists, push the field forward as they set about answering this question. They adapt robust control techniques and apply them to economics. By using this theory to let decision makers acknowledge misspecification in economic modeling, the authors develop applications to a variety of problems in dynamic macroeconomics. Technical, rigorous, and self-contained, this book will be useful for macroeconomists who seek to improve the robustness of decision-making processes.
Download or read book Handbook of Behavioral Economics Foundations and Applications 1 written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications presents the concepts and tools of behavioral economics. Its authors are all economists who share a belief that the objective of behavioral economics is to enrich, rather than to destroy or replace, standard economics. They provide authoritative perspectives on the value to economic inquiry of insights gained from psychology. Specific chapters in this first volume cover reference-dependent preferences, asset markets, household finance, corporate finance, public economics, industrial organization, and structural behavioural economics. This Handbook provides authoritative summaries by experts in respective subfields regarding where behavioral economics has been; what it has so far accomplished; and its promise for the future. This taking-stock is just what Behavioral Economics needs at this stage of its so-far successful career. Helps academic and non-academic economists understand recent, rapid changes in theoretical and empirical advances within behavioral economics Designed for economists already convinced of the benefits of behavioral economics and mainstream economists who feel threatened by new developments in behavioral economics Written for those who wish to become quickly acquainted with behavioral economics
Download or read book The Color of Wealth written by Barbara Robles and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2006-06-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For every dollar owned by the average white family in the United States, the average family of color has less than a dime. Why do people of color have so little wealth? The Color of Wealth lays bare a dirty secret: for centuries, people of color have been barred by laws and by discrimination from participating in government wealth-building programs that benefit white Americans. This accessible book—published in conjunction with one of the country's leading economics education organizations—makes the case that until government policy tackles disparities in wealth, not just income, the United States will never have racial or economic justice. Written by five leading experts on the racial wealth divide who recount the asset-building histories of Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans, this book is a uniquely comprehensive multicultural history of American wealth. With its focus on public policies—how, for example, many post–World War II GI Bill programs helped whites only—The Color of Wealth is the first book to demonstrate the decisive influence of government on Americans' net worth.
Download or read book The Welfare State as Piggy Bank written by Nicholas Barr and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-05-10 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the many functions of the welfare state, two are particularly prominent: the 'Robin Hood' function - the provision of poverty relief, the redistribution of income and wealth, and the reduction of social exclusion; and the 'piggy bank' function - ensuring mechanisms for insurance and for redistribution over the life cycle. The piggy-bank function, unlike the redistributive purpose of the welfare state, has received relatively little attention, and is not widely understood. This book redresses the balance. Nicholas Barr's central contention is that—-contrary to popular opinion—-the welfare state exists for reasons additional to poverty relief. These reasons - encapsulated by the piggy-bank function - arise out of pervasive problems of imperfect information, risk, and uncertainty. Even if all poverty and social exclusion could be eradicated, people would still need to insure themselves and to redistribute over the life cycle. As a result, Barr argues, the welfare state is here to stay, since twenty-first century developments do nothing to undermine these reasons. He also explores ways in which the welfare state can and will adapt to economic and social change, including specific, and sometimes novel, solutions. The analysis in "The Welfare State as Piggy Bank" is international, applying to advanced industrial countries, as well as addressing post-communist countries, and touching upon middle-income developing countries. Barr's approach is contemporary and forward-thinking. His discussion ranges over a number of topics of central relevance to life in the twenty-first century, including genetic screening and its impact on insurance; the convergence of private and social insurance; how to finance long-term care; pension reform in the light of fluid family structures and a mobile workforce; loans for financing investment in human capital; and new ways of involving private finance in tertiary education.
Download or read book Pricing the Planet s Future written by Christian Gollier and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the judge, the citizen, the politician, and the entrepreneur are concerned with the sustainability of our development.
Download or read book Moral Hazard in Health Insurance written by Amy Finkelstein and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice
Download or read book Toxic Inequality written by Thomas M. Shapiro and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a leading authority on race and public policy, a deeply researched account of how families rise and fall today Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a tenth that of white Americans, and over recent decades, white families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities -- a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality." In Toxic Inequality, Shapiro reveals how these forces combine to trap families in place. Following nearly two hundred families of different races and income levels over a period of twelve years, Shapiro's research vividly documents the recession's toll on parents and children, the ways families use assets to manage crises and create opportunities, and the real reasons some families build wealth while others struggle in poverty. The structure of our neighborhoods, workplaces, and tax code-much more than individual choices-push some forward and hold others back. A lack of assets, far more common in families of color, can often ruin parents' careful plans for themselves and their children. Toxic inequality may seem inexorable, but it is not inevitable. America's growing wealth gap and its yawning racial divide have been forged by history and preserved by policy, and only bold, race-conscious reforms can move us toward a more just society. "Everyone concerned about the toxic effects of inequality must read this book." -- Robert B. Reich "This is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read on economic inequality in the US." -- William Julius Wilson
Download or read book The Financial Diaries written by Jonathan Morduch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the groundbreaking U.S. Financial Diaries project (http://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/), which follows the lives of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year, the authors challenge popular assumptions about how Americans earn, spend, borrow, and save-- and they identify the true causes of distress and inequality for many working Americans.
Download or read book Are External Shocks Responsible for the Instability of Output in Low Income Countries written by Claudio E. Raddatz and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: External shocks, such as commodity price fluctuations, natural disasters, and the role of the international economy, are often blamed for the poor economic performance of low-income countries. The author quantifies the impact of these different external shocks using a panel vector autoregression (VAR) approach and compares their relative contributions to output volatility in low-income countries vis-à-vis internal factors. He finds that external shocks can only explain a small fraction of the output variance of a typical low-income country. Internal factors are the main source of fluctuations. From a quantitative perspective, the output effect of external shocks is typically small in absolute terms, but significant relative to the historic performance of these countries.
