IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v17y2025i2p65-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Unemployment Risk Affect Business Cycle Dynamics?

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Graves

Abstract

In this paper, I show that the decline in consumption during unemployment depends on both liquid and illiquid wealth; that unemployment predicts illiquid asset withdrawal, primarily when households have few liquid assets; and that increased idiosyncratic unemployment risk leads to a rise in saving overall, but also to a decline in investment in illiquid assets. Motivated by these new findings, I embed endogenous unemployment risk in a two-asset, heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian model. The model is consistent with the new evidence and suggests that aggregate shocks are amplified by a flight-to-liquidity when unemployment risk rises, particularly when monetary policy is constrained.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Graves, 2025. "Does Unemployment Risk Affect Business Cycle Dynamics?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 65-100, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:65-100
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20220071
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20220071
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E194744V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/22733
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/22734
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20220071?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:65-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.