Skewed Idiosyncratic Income Risk over the Business Cycle: Sources and Insurance
研究了美国、德国、瑞典和法国四国在商业周期中劳动收入风险的偏斜波动，发现收入增长偏斜度呈强顺周期性，而方差平稳无周期，且家庭内平滑效果有限，税收转移政策可缓解偏斜波动。
We provide new evidence on business cycle fluctuations in skewed labor income risk in the United States, Germany, Sweden, and France. We document four results. First, in all countries, the skewness of individual income growth is strongly procyclical, whereas its variance is flat and acyclical. Second, this result also holds for continuously employed, full-time workers, indicating that the hours margin is not the main driver; additional analyses of hours and wages confirm that both margins are important. Third, within-household smoothing does not seem effective at mitigating skewness fluctuations. Fourth, tax-and-transfer policies blunt some of the largest declines in incomes, reducing procyclical fluctuations in skewness.