Wage Risk and Government and Spousal Insurance
通过校准夫妻和单身者的储蓄与劳动供给模型，比较两种工资过程下最优福利组合，发现标准工资过程低估女性工资持续性，导致错误政策建议，而灵活工资过程支持以收入下限为主要福利来源。
Abstract The extent to which households can self-insure depends on family structure and wage risk. We calibrate a model of couples and singles’ savings and labour supply under two types of wage processes. The first wage process is the canonical—age-independent, linear—one that is typically used to evaluate government insurance provision. The second wage process is a flexible one. We use our model to evaluate the optimal mix of the two most common types of means-tested benefits—IW versus income floor. The canonical wage process underestimates wage persistence for women and thus implies that IW benefits should account for most benefit income. In contrast, the richer wage process that matches the wage data well, implies that the income floor should be the main benefit source, similarly to the system in place in the U.K. This stresses that allowing for rich wage dynamics is important to properly evaluate policy.