This paper studies empirically the relationship between trade policy and individual income risk faced by workers. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, longitudinal data on workers are used to estimate time-varying individual income risk parameters in various manufacturing sectors. The estimated income risk parameters and data on trade barriers are then used to analyze the relationship b...

We study the quantitative properties of a dynamic general equilibrium model in which agents face both idiosyncratic and aggregate income risk, state-dependent borrowing constraints that bind in some but not all periods and markets are incomplete. Optimal individual consumption-savings plans and equilibrium asset prices are computed under various assumptions about income uncertainty. Then we inv...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association of state income inequality and individual household income with the mental and physical health of women with young children. DESIGN Cross sectional study. Individual level data (outcomes, income, and other sociodemographic covariates) from a 1991 follow up survey of a birth cohort established in 1988. State level income inequality calculated from the incom...

Using the 1996 Community Tracking Study household survey, the authors examined whether income inequality and primary care, measured at the state level, predict individual morbidity as measured by self-rated health status, while adjusting for potentially confounding individual variables. Their results indicate that distributions of income and primary care within states are significantly associat...

I propose an intertemporal precautionary saving model in which the agent’s labor income is subject to (possibly correlated) shocks with different degrees of persistence and volatility. However, he only observes his total income, not individual components. I show that partial observability of individual components of income gives rise to additional precautionary saving due to estimation risk, th...

BACKGROUND Common mental disorders are more prevalent in areas of high neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation but whether the prevalence varies with neighbourhood income inequality is not known. AIMS To investigate the hypothesis that the interaction between small-area income deprivation and income inequality was associated with individual mental health. METHOD Multilevel analysis of popul...

Mortality rates in the United States vary based on race, individual economic status and neighborhood. Correlations among these variables in most urban areas have limited what conclusions can be drawn from existing research. Our study employs a unique factorial design of race, sex, age and individual poverty status, measuring time to death as an objective measure of health, and including both ne...

PURPOSE Much variation in individual-level cognitive function in late life remains unexplained, with little exploration of area-level/contextual factors to date. Income inequality is a contextual factor that may plausibly influence cognitive function. METHODS In a nationally-representative cohort of older Americans from the Health and Retirement Study, we examined state- and metropolitan stat...