Future Labor Income Research Articles

El dinamismo reciente del mercado laboral y su impacto sobre el consumo de los trabajadores

RationaleSince the pandemic, the Spanish labour market has shown considerable strength, which has been conducive to a decline in the perceived probability of job loss among workers. This article evaluates the extent to which this may have had a positive impact on consumption (by reducing precautionary saving).Takeaways•The strength of the labour market and the rising share of permanent contracts have helped reduce workers’ perceived probability of job loss. This lowers precautionary saving and raises household spending levels•Uncertainty regarding future labour income has a particularly strong impact on spending on durable goods, and an albeit smaller impact on other non-essential expenditure.•The households whose spending on durables is most responsive to changes in uncertainty about future labour income are those that lack a minimum buffer of liquid assets to withstand a drop in income. This is observed most frequently among low-income and young households.

Impact of Enterprise Financing Constraints on Labor Income Share Based on Internet of Things Data Analysis Technology

Although the Chinese economy has developed rapidly since the reform and opening up, the income distribution gap is widening year by year. The final social income distribution pattern is highly dependent on the primary distribution pattern. Therefore, the changing trend and influencing factors of labor income share have become the focus of academic research and the focus of government attention. Based on this, this article proposes enterprise financing based on Internet of Things data analysis technology. Studies on the impact of restraints on labor income shares will help further research on the impact of corporate financial restraints on future labor income shares. Based on the financial data reports published in the CCER database and the company’s IPO prospectus and annual report, this paper discusses whether the company’s key business products belong to the Internet of Things’ key technology application categories. Take 226 IoT companies as the research objects of this article, and conduct a secondary screening. The final survey sample is used to investigate the impact of corporate funding constraints on labor income share. Tests have proved that among the 179 resource‐based enterprises undergoing transformation, 109 enterprises have undergone intraindustry transformation, accounting for 48.23% of the overall sample and 60.89% of the sample of transformed enterprises. Downstream expansion makes the business industry expand. This shows that funding constraints have a negative impact on labor income share. This is primarily the result of the impact of the long‐term debt‐to‐asset ratio on labor income share.

Not just a work permit: EU citizenship and the consumption behaviour of documented and undocumented immigrants

AbstractThis paper explores the impact of the 2007 European Union enlargement on the consumption behaviour of immigrant households. Using data from a unique Italian survey and a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that the enlargement induced a significant consumption increase for the immigrant households from new member states both in the short and in the medium run. This enlargement effect cannot be attributed to the mere legalization as it concerns both undocumented and documented immigrants, albeit through different channels. Detailed information on immigrants’ legal status (undocumented/documented) and sector of employment (informal/formal) allows us to shed light on the exact mechanisms. Following the enlargement, previously undocumented immigrants experienced an increase in the labour income by moving from the informal towards the formal economy, whereas immigrants who were already working legally in Italy benefited from the increased probability of getting a permanent contract. Enhanced employment stability in turn reduced the uncertainty about future labour income leading to an increase in documented immigrants’ consumption expenditure.

Annuitization and asset allocation with borrowing constraint

We generalize the result of Yaari (1965) on annuitization with borrowing constraint. We show that inability to borrow against future labor income has a significant influence on an individual’s consumption and asset allocation strategies. We also show that there exists a certain threshold of wealth for annuitization. We find that the wealth threshold is lower in the presence of borrowing constraint than in its absence, implying the individual’s earlier retirement.

Finite horizon portfolio selection with a negative wealth constraint

This paper studies an optimal consumption and portfolio strategy with a negative wealth constraint for a finitely-lived economic agent. That is, we allow the individual agent to borrow partially against her/his future labor income during a finite time horizon. We derive the associated Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation and use the Mellin transform to obtain the integral equation representation satisfied by the free boundary. Moreover, we derive an analytic representation for the optimal consumption, wealth, and portfolio, and provide some numerical implications for the optimal strategies.

Not Just a Work Permit: EU Citizenship and the Consumption Behavior of Documented and Undocumented Immigrants

This paper explores the impact of the 2007 European Union enlargement on the consumption behavior of immigrant households. Using data from a unique Italian survey and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the enlargement induced a significant consumption increase for the immigrant households from new member states both in the short- and in the medium-run. This enlargement effect cannot be attributed to the mere legalization as it concerns both undocumented and documented immigrants, albeit through different channels. Detailed information on immigrants' legal status (undocumented/documented) and sector of employment (informal/formal) allows us to shed light on the exact mechanisms. Following the enlargement, previously undocumented immigrants experienced an increase in the labor income by moving from the informal towards the formal economy, whereas immigrants who were already working legally in Italy benefitted from the increased probability of getting a permanent contract. Enhanced employment stability in turn reduced the uncertainty about future labor income leading to an increase in documented immigrants' consumption expenditure.

Stimuluje spotřebu v situaci nulové nominální úrokové míry zvýšení inflačních očekávání?

In an effort to stimulate aggregate demand at the zero lower bound, economists and central bankers have focused on inflation expectations. The key argument is that an increase in inflation expectations may reduce the real interest rate and thus encourage consumption spending. This article examines not only the traditional channels of the fall in the interest rate connected to the relative importance of the substitution and income effects, but it also investigates the impact on the perceived real future labour income. It is shown that if people do not adjust their expectations about future nominal labour income when inflation their expectations rise, the effect on present consumption can be negative, and the aggregate demand might be reduced rather than increased. A graphical and mathematical analysis in the paper exposes the relative importance of traditional channels and this new channel. It is shown that the traditional perspective is only a special case of a more general approach.

Borrowing constraints, effective flexibility in labor supply, and portfolio selection

We study optimal job switching and consumption/investment policies of an economic agent under the borrowing constraints against future labor income in a continuous and infinite time horizon. The agent’s preference is given by the Cobb–Douglas utility function whose arguments are consumption and leisure, and the jobs are characterized by the trade-off between labor income and leisure. We obtain a closed-form solution to the optimization problem by using the martingale and duality method, and investigate theoretical implications of it. The most interesting finding for the optimal job switching policy is that the borrowing constraints in the financial market can decrease the effective flexibility in labor supply of the agent in the labor market. Thus, an environment of the financial market can affect an agent’s decision making in the labor market. We also show how the effects of the borrowing constraints on the optimal consumption/investment policy reinforce or compete with those of the job switching opportunities.

Inheritance Taxation and Wealth Effects on the Labor Supply of Heirs

The taxation of bequests can have a positive impact on the labor supply of heirs through wealth effects. This leads to an increase in future labor income tax revenue on top of direct bequest tax revenue. We first show in a theoretical model that a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation, based on existing estimates for the reduction in earnings after wealth transfers, fails: the marginal propensity to earn out of unearned income is not a sufficient statistic for the calculation of this effect because (i) heirs anticipate the reduction in net bequests and adjust their labor supply already prior to inheriting, and (ii) when bequest receipt is stochastic, even those who ex post end up not inheriting anything respond ex ante to the implied change in their distribution of net bequests. We quantitatively elaborate the size of the overall revenue effect due to labor supply changes of heirs by using a state of the art life-cycle model that we calibrate to the German economy. Besides the joint distribution of income and inheritances, quasi-experimental evidence regarding the size of wealth effects on labor supply is a key target for this calibration. We find that for each Euro of bequest tax revenue the government mechanically generates, it obtains an additional 9 Cents of labor income tax revenue (in net present value) through higher labor supply of (non-)heirs.

A dynamic programming approach to a consumption/investment and retirement choice problem under borrowing constraints

In this paper we consider an optimization problem of an infinitely lived working agent with an option to retire who maximizes the utility from her lifetime consumption. The agent receives labor income during the period before her voluntary retirement, but suffers disutility from labor. Moreover, the agent lacks the means to borrow against her future labor income. We use the dynamic programming approach to derive the closed-form solutions and provide some numerical illustrations.

Constant proportion portfolio insurance in defined contribution pension plan management

We consider the optimal portfolio problem with minimum guarantee protection in a defined contribution pension scheme. We compare various versions of guarantee concepts in a labor income coupled CPPI-framework with random future labor income. Besides classical deterministic guarantees we also introduce path-dependent guarantees. To ensure that there is no bias in the comparison, we obtain the optimal CPPI-multiplier for each guarantee framework via using a classical stochastic control approach.

Why don't voters ‘put the Gini back in the bottle'? Inequality and economic preferences for redistribution

The classic democratic theory of redistribution claims that an increase in market income inequality causes an increase in the size of government through majority voter support for an offsetting expansion of redistribution. I argue that the predicted inequality–redistribution relationship can break down when voters face uninsurable idiosyncratic risk with respect to future labor income and a timing differential between tax collections and government outlays. This is formalized using an incomplete market heterogeneous-agent DSGE model with majority voting and ‘time-to-build’ policy, which suggests the collective demand for redistribution will not necessarily increase with growing income or wealth inequality. This result implies that even with equal political power among voters, democracies do not have a systematic mechanism to offset rising inequality as contrary to popular belief.

How to Consume and Invest for Retirement: Revisiting Friedman's Permanent Income Hypothesis

I study optimal consumption and investment for retirement in an economic environment where an individual has retirement flexibility and borrowing constraints. I show that Friedman’s (1957) permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is generalized with retirement and constrained borrowing against future labor income. In particular, a linear consumption rule in financial wealth and human wealth does not hold, and the non-linearity feature of option associated with retirement is of great importance to the consumption policy. Further, the first-order effect of inability to borrow money with human wealth on consumption and savings for retirement is captured by the generalized PIH rule. Finally, I find that an individual’s aggressive risk taking by increasing stock investment turns out to be somewhat rational for retirement.

In Times of Sickness: Intra-household Labour Substitution in Rural Indonesian Households

ABSTRACTIn many developing countries, households with ill adults suffer not only from diminished labour supply but also from an inability to borrow against future labour income. Intra-household labour substitution may be an important coping strategy for these households. Using information about individual health status provided by Indonesia Family Life Survey, this study finds some evidence that Indonesian farm households cope with chronic illnesses of male adults through intra-household labour substitution. Yet, the results show that this strategy is not effective in the case of severe health shocks and that these households are unable to keep their family farm profits stable.

일반적 효용함수 하에서 대출제약의 정도와 최적 소비 및 투자

I study optimal consumption and investment choices of an infinitely-lived economic agent with a general time-sepa- rable von Neumann-Morgenstern utility under general borrowing constraints against future labor income. An explicit solution is provided by the dynamic programming method. It is shown that the optimal consumption and risky invest- ment decrease as the borrowing constraints become stronger.

Life-Cycle Asset Allocation and Unemployment Risk

In this paper we extend the traditional life cycle model of saving and portfolio choice to allow for possible long-term unemployment spells to have permanent effects on subsequent labor income prospects. The risk of losing future labor income could imply strong human capital erosion for the investor at any age, dampening the incentive to invest in risky stocks. The resulting optimal portfolio share invested in stocks may be relatively flat in age, more in line with the available evidence and contrary to the predictions of traditional life-cycle models.

Macroeconomic Effects of Credit Deepening in Latin America

This paper augments a relatively standard dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions in order to quantify the macroeconomic effects of the credit deepening process observed in many Latin American (LA) countries in the last decade, most notably in Brazil. In the model, a stylized banking sector intermediates credit from patient households to impatient households and firms. The key novelty of the paper, motivated by the Brazilian experience, is to model the credit constraint faced by (impatient) households as a function of future labor income. In the calibrated model, credit deepening generates only modest abovetrend growth in consumption, investment, and GDP. Since Brazil has experienced one of the most intense credit deepening processes in Latin America, it is argued that the quantitative effects for other LA economies are unlikely to be sizeable.

Inconsistent Investment and Consumption Problems

In a traditional Black---Scholes market we develop a verification theorem for a general class of investment and consumption problems where the standard dynamic programming principle does not hold. The theorem is an extension of the standard Hamilton---Jacobi---Bellman equation in the form of a system of non-linear differential equations. We derive the optimal investment and consumption strategy for a mean-variance investor without pre-commitment endowed with labor income. In the case of constant risk aversion it turns out that the optimal amount of money to invest in stocks is independent of wealth. The optimal consumption strategy is given as a deterministic bang-bang strategy. In order to have a more realistic model we allow the risk aversion to be time and state dependent. Of special interest is the case were the risk aversion is inversely proportional to present wealth plus the financial value of future labor income net of consumption. Using the verification theorem we give a detailed analysis of this problem. It turns out that the optimal amount of money to invest in stocks is given by a linear function of wealth plus the financial value of future labor income net of consumption. The optimal consumption strategy is again given as a deterministic bang-bang strategy. We also calculate, for a general time and state dependent risk aversion function, the optimal investment and consumption strategy for a mean-standard deviation investor without pre-commitment. In that case, it turns out that it is optimal to take no risk at all.

An intertemporal capital asset pricing model with bank credit growth as a state variable

An ICAPM which includes bank credit growth as a state variable explains 94% of the cross-sectional variation in the average returns on the 25 Fama–French portfolios. We find compelling evidence that bank credit growth is priced in the cross-section of expected stock returns, even after controlling for well-documented asset pricing factors. These results are robust to the inclusion of industry portfolios in the set of test assets. They are also robust to the addition of firm characteristics and lagged instruments in the factor model. Bank credit growth is important because of its ability to predict business cycle variables as well as future labor income growth. These findings underscore the relevance of bank credit growth in stock pricing.

Evidence on the Benefits of Alternative Mortgage Products

ABSTRACTAlternative mortgage products have been identified by many as culprits in the financial crisis. However, because of their lower initial mortgage payments relative to loan amount, they may be a valuable tool for households that expect higher and more certain future labor income, and that wish to smooth consumption over the life‐cycle. Using U.K. household‐level panel data, this paper provides evidence in support of this hypothesis and highlights other important benefits of alternative mortgages, including portfolio diversification, tax benefits, and a reduction in the transaction costs incurred in housing transactions.