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Unemployment And Liquidity Constraints, Vassilis A. Hajivassiliou, Yannis M. Ioannides

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In this paper we propose a modelling approach for labor supply and consumption decisions that is firmly grounded within a utility maximizing framework and allows for a role of such institutional constraints as limited access to borrowing and involuntary unemployment. We report estimations for a system of dynamic probit models with data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. These estimations test broad predictions of the theoretical model. One of our models describes a household’s propensity to be liquidity constrained in a given period. The second is a dynamic ordered probit model for a labor constraint indicator describing qualitative aspects …