We study the optimal provision of unemployment insurance (UI) in a framework that distinguishes between consumption and expenditure. We derive a "sufficient statistics" formula for optimal UI that is expressed terms of observable variables and can therefore be used in applied work. Recent...

By how much do employed households reduce their consumption when the aggregate unemployment rate rises? In Spain during the Great Recession a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate was related to a strong drop in household consumption of more than 0.7% per equivalent adult. This...

We study how estimators used to impute consumption in survey data are inconsistent due to measurement error in consumption. Previous research suggests instrumenting consumption to overcome this problem. We show that, if additional regressors are present, then instrumenting consumption may still...

We study how estimators that are used to impute consumption in survey data are inconsistent due to measurement error in consumption. Previous research suggests instrumenting consumption to overcome this problem. We show that, if additional regressors are present, then instrumenting consumption...

The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) offers the most comprehensive consumption data at the consumer level for the United States. Several previous studies have shown a large gap between per-capita consumption from the CEX and the aggregate Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) series. While...

Conventional difference-in-differences (DID) methods that are used to estimate the effect of a treatment rely on important identifying assumptions. Identification of the treatment effect in a DID framework requires some assumption relating trends for controls and treated in absence of treatment,...

The literature has identified three main approaches to account for the way exchange rate regimes are chosen: i) the optimal currency area theory; ii) the financial view, which highlights the consequences of international financial integration; and iii) the political view, which stresses the use...

The literature has identified three main approaches to account for the way exchange rate regimes are chosen: i) the optimal currency area theory; ii) the financial view, which highlights the consequences of international financial integration; and iii) the political view, which stresses the use...

In order to understand what motivates parents to send their children to work, I apply a collective household model introducing child labor explicitly. Using data from Mexico, I estimate the mothers' bargaining power separately from the other parameters of the model. This parameter is then used...

In order to understand what motivates parents to send their children to work, I apply a collective household model introducing child labor explicitly. Using data from Mexico, I am able to estimate the mothers' bargaining power separately from the other parameters of the model. I find that an...