The Welfare Cost of Business Cycles Revisited: Finite Lives and Cyclical Variation in Idiosyncratic Risk

Kjetil Storesletten, Chris Telmer () and Amir Yaron

No 8040, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper investigates the welfare costs of business cycles in a heterogeneous agent, overlapping generations economy which is distinguished by idiosyncratic labor market risk. Aggregate variation arises both in terms of aggregate productivity shocks and countercyclical variation in the volatility of idiosyncratic shocks. Based on both aggregate data and microeconomic data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics, we find the welfare benefits of eliminating aggregate variation to be large an order of magnitude larger than those originally documented by Lucas (1987). The key difference is countercyclical variation in idiosyncratic risk, which both amplifies the welfare cost of aggregate productivity shocks and imposes a cost of its own. The magnitude of these effects increases non-linearly in risk aversion. Our results support the increasingly popular notion that distributional effects are an important aspect of understanding the welfare cost of business cycles.

JEL-codes: D31 F21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-12
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published as Storesletten, Kjetil, Chris T. Telmer and Amir Yaron. "The Welfare Cost Of Business Cycles Revisited: Finite Lives And Cyclical Variation In Idiosyncratic Risk," European Economic Review, 2001, v45(7,Jun), 1311-1339.

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Journal Article: The welfare cost of business cycles revisited: Finite lives and cyclical variation in idiosyncratic risk (2001)
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