中文摘要
我们提出一个理论，分析劳动者的资产持有如何影响其工作生产率。在存在不可保险风险的劳动力市场中，劳动者在生产率、工资与失业风险之间权衡取舍，从而选择求职方向。资产持有量较低的劳动者具有预防性求职动机：他们将求职导向低生产率岗位，因为这类岗位风险较低，但代价是低生产率和低工资。我们的主要理论贡献在于表明，消费平滑机制的存在可以使定向搜寻模型与工资对失业持续时间的负向依赖性相协调——这是经典定向搜寻模型无法解释的一项稳健经验规律。我们对无限期经济进行校准，发现这一机制在数量上十分重要。我们评估了一项由税收筹资的失业保险（UI）方案，并分析其如何影响福利。总福利与给付水平之间呈倒U形关系：当给付水平较低时，失业保险的保险效应占主导；当给付水平较高时，激励效应则占主导。此外，随着失业保险给付增加，经济中的总产出下降，而劳动者生产率上升。
Abstract
Abstract We propose a theory that analyzes how a workers’ asset holdings affect their job productivity. In a labor market with uninsurable risk, workers choose to direct their job search trading off productivity and wages against unemployment risk. Workers with low asset holdings have a precautionary job search motive, they direct their search to low productivity jobs because those offer a low risk at the cost of low productivity and a low wage. Our main theoretical contribution shows that the presence of consumption smoothing can reconcile the directed search model with negative duration-dependence on wages, a robust empirical regularity that the canonical directed search model cannot rationalize. We calibrate the infinite horizon economy and find this mechanism to be quantitatively important. We evaluate a tax financed unemployment insurance (UI) scheme and analyze how it affects welfare. Aggregate welfare is inverted U-shaped in benefits: the insurance effect UI dominates the incentive effects for low levels of benefits and vice versa for high benefits. In addition, when UI increases, total production falls in the economy while worker productivity increases.