期刊名称：Discussion Papers in Economics / Woodrow Wilson School
出版年度：2007
卷号：2007
出版社：Princeton
摘要：I study the welfare cost of business cycles in a complete-markets economy where
some people are more risk averse than others. Relatively more risk-averse people buy
insurance against aggregate risk, and relatively less risk-averse people sell insurance.
These trades reduce the welfare cost of business cycles for everyone. Indeed, the least
risk-averse people bene t from business cycles. Moreover, even in nitely risk-averse
people su
er only nite and, in my empirical estimates, very small welfare losses. In
other words, when there are complete insurance markets, aggregate uctuations in
consumption are essentially irrelevant not just for the average person { the surprising
nding of Lucas (1987) { but for everyone in the economy, no matter how risk averse
they are. If business cycles matter, it is because they a
ect productivity or interact
with uninsured idiosyncratic risk, not because aggregate risk per se reduces welfare.
