This paper measures risk in the present value of workers’ remaining lifetime earnings. Building upon a common earnings specification, our estimate combines flexible, heterogeneous forecasts of individuals’ expected earnings growth rates and the variances of potential permanent and temporary...

We add to the debate about whether empirical models of earnings dynamics should allow for unobservable heterogeneity in expected earnings growth rates by considering the consequences for estimating the variance of earnings shocks. Several tests are proposed, some that extend and augment earlier...