| 1. |
- Bastani, Spencer, Docent, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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The Capital Advantage : Comparing Returns to Ability in the Labor and Capital Markets
- 2024
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Using administrative tax and military records, we show that cognitive ability is more strongly associated with capital income than with labor income. This result holds across intensive and extensive margins, across different income types, and after controlling for education, occupation, inheritance, and parental background. Higher ability individuals save more, are better at selecting high-return stocks, hold more risky assets, and are less likely to live hand-to-mouth. Capital market returns are higher for cognitive ability than for non-cognitive skills, and the difference is stable over time. Rising capital shares, fueled by technological progress, could therefore exacerbate cognitive ability-based economic inequality.
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| 2. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas
(författare)
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Consumption Smoothing during Unemployment
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A vast literature has investigated how unemployment insurance (UI) affects labor supply. However, the distorting e¤ect of UI on labor supply is to a large extent determined by how well UI bene.ts smooth private consumption, which in turn depends on the resources available to the unemployed. To determine UI.s consumption-smoothing e¤ect, I exploit a kink in the deterministic relationship between previous earnings and unemployment bene.ts. The randomized assignment of bene.ts created by the kink allows me to identify how UI a¤ect the use of private wealth to .nance consumption during unemployment spells. Using Swedish data for 2000 - 2002 I find that a large share of the unemployed actually can consume at the same level as they did prior to the layo¤. I also .nd that loans are of great importance to consumption smoothing as more than half the sample lacks bu¤er savings. This is further emphasized for di¤erent subpopulations. Women, couples, and older individuals holds signi.cantly larger liquid wealth than men and young singles.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas, 1980-
(författare)
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Insuring Against Unemployment
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper studies optimal public unemployment insurance (UI) when workers have the possibility of topping-up public UI with private UI that is endogenous to public UI and subject to moral hazard. The issue is analyzed with a theoretical model in which publicly insured workers, who differ in layoff risk, hidden to the planner, are offered to top-up public UI with private UI. In the model, high risk workers top-up while low risk workers abstain from private UI. The result is lower public UI while UI with top-up is more generous compared to UI in a purely public system. Less risk pooling, however, leads to higher costs for mixed UI provision. Then, I show that the effect of public UI on assets, private UI and unemployment duration can be used as sufficient statistics to calibrate the impact on welfare from public UI in the presence of private UI. I estimate the effects using data on a Swedish union run top-up scheme. Identification is achieved using a kinked public UI benefit rule. Calibrating the model shows that workers with mixed UI experience a negative impact on welfare from increased public UI while those with only public UI seem to have about optimal UI coverage.
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| 5. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas
(författare)
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Precaution and Risk Aversion : Decomposing the Effect ofUnemployment Benefits on Saving
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Reduced form estimations of precautionary saving with respect to labor market risk have hitherto failed to consider that a decrease of say unemployment probability or an increase in unemployment insurance (UI) generosity affects saving not only by reducing the expected variance in earnings but also by raising expected earnings. This paper studies the possibility of decomposing the treatment effect of UI on asset accumulation into two parts; one part where more generous UI leads to raised expected earnings and a second part where a more generous UI reduces the expected variation in earnings. The decomposition is applied to rich Swedish register data on both financial assets and debt. UI’s effect on assets is identified with a kinked policy rule in the UI scheme. First, increased UI generosity has a significant effect, both economically and statistically, on asset holdings; a one percentage point increase in UI benefits decrease net financial asset holdings by 1 percentage point. Second, decomposing the total effect UI has on asset accumulation shows that raised expected earnings increase savings while a decreased variation in earnings decrease saving. Not accounting for the effect on expected earnings on saving underestimates the impact UI has on precautionary saving by 70 percent.
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| 6. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Retirement Consumption and Pension Designs
- 2024
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Ingår i: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 114:1, s. 89-133
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper analyzes consumption to evaluate the distributional effects of pension reforms. Using Swedish administrative data, we show that on average, workers who retire earlier consume less while retired and experience larger drops in consumption around retirement. Interpreted via a theoretical model, these findings imply that reforms incentivizing later retirement incur a substantial consumption smoothing cost. Turning to other features of pension policy, we find that reforms that redistribute based on early-career labor supply would have opposite-signed redistributive effects, while differentiating on wealth may help to target pension benefits toward those who are vulnerable to larger drops in consumption around retirement.
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| 7. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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The optimal timing of unemployment benefits : theory and evidence from Sweden
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper provides a simple, yet general framework to analyze the optimal time profile of benefits during the unemployment spell. We derive simple sufficient-statistics formulae capturing the insurance value and incentive costs of unemployment benefits paid at different times during the unemployment spell. Our general approach allows to revisit and evaluate in a transparent way the separate arguments for inclining or declining profiles put forward in the theoretical literature. We then estimate our sufficient statistics using administrative data on unemployment, income and wealth in Sweden. First, we exploit duration-dependent kinks in the replacement rate and find that the moral hazard cost of benefits is larger when paid earlier in the spell. Second, we find that the drop in consumption determining the insurance value of benefits is large from the start of the spell, but further increases throughout the spell.On average, savings and credit play a limited role in smoothing consumption. Our evidence therefore indicates that the recent change from a flat to a declining benefit profile in Sweden has decreased welfare. In fact, the local welfare gains push towards an increasing rather than decreasing benefit profile over the spell.
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| 8. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits : Theory and Evidence from Sweden
- 2018
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Ingår i: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 108:4-5, s. 985-1033
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper provides a simple, yet robust framework to evaluate the time profile of benefits paid during an unemployment spell. We derive sufficient-statistics formulae capturing the marginal insurance value and incentive costs of unemployment-benefits paid at different times during a spell. Our approach allows us to revisit separate arguments for inclining or declining profiles put forward in the theoretical literature and to identify welfare-improving-changes in the benefit profile that account for all relevant arguments jointly: For the empirical implementation, we use administrative data on unemployment, linked to data on consumption, income, and wealth in Sweden. First, we exploit duration-dependent kinks in the replacement rate and find that, if anything, the moral hazard cost of benefits is larger when paid earlier the spell. Second, we find that the drop in consumption affecting the insurance value of benefits is large from the start of the spell, hut further increases throughout tie spell. In trading off insurance and incentives, our analysis suggests that the flat benefit profile in Sweden has been too generous overall. However, both from the insurance and the incentives side, we find no evidence to support the introduction of a declining tilt in the profile.
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| 9. |
- Kolsrud, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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The value of registry data for consumption analysis : An application to health shocks
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Public Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0047-2727 .- 1879-2316. ; 189
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper measures consumption expenditures using registry data on income and asset holdings in Sweden. We show how a registry-based measure complements traditional survey measures of consumption and can alleviate some critical limitations. We describe the construction of our measure, which builds on prior work and exploits the identity coming from the household budget constraint between consumption expenditures and income net of savings. We demonstrate the value of the registry-based measure to study consumption responses to shocks, also relative to surveyed consumption. In our application to health shocks, we find that Swedish household experience permanent earning drops, but generous social transfers provide substantial consumption smoothing. We document important heterogeneity in consumption responses and the limited role for private means.
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