The Response of Italian Households to a Large Transitory Income Shock During an Economic Crisis: An Experimental Study on the Intention to Increase Consumption Levels

We study the spending profile of workers who experience both a positive transitory income shock (lump-sum severance pay) and a negative permanent income shock (layoff). Using de-identified expenditure and employment data from Brazil, we show that workers increase spending at layoff by 35 percent despite experiencing a 14 percent long-term loss. We find high sensitivity of spending to cash-on-hand across consumption categories and for several sources of variation, including predictable income drops. A model with present-biased workers can rationalize our findings, and highlights the importance of the timing of benefit disbursement for the consumption-smoothing gains of job displacement insurance policies. (JEL D12, G51, J65, J63, O12)

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Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison

The American Economic Review ◽

10.1257/aer.p20151004 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 105 (5) ◽

pp. 420-425 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

John Beshears ◽

James J. Choi ◽

Joshua Hurwitz ◽

David Laibson ◽

Brigitte C. Madrian

Keyword(s):

Developed Countries ◽

Retirement Savings ◽

Defined Contribution ◽

Middle Income ◽

Dc System ◽

Early Withdrawal ◽

The Us ◽

Transitory Income ◽

Income Shock ◽

The Uk

We compare the liquidity that six developed countries have built into their employer-based defined contribution (DC) retirement schemes. In Germany, Singapore, and the UK, withdrawals are essentially banned no matter what kind of transitory income shock the household realizes. By contrast, in Canada and Australia, liquidity is state-contingent. For a middle-income household, DC accounts are completely illiquid unless annual income falls substantially, in which case DC assets become highly liquid. The US stands alone in the universally high liquidity of its DC system: whether or not income falls, the penalties for early withdrawal are low or non-existent.

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Experimental study on the restoration from a tilt-azimuth series for improvement in resolution

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s042482010013955x ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 636-637

Author(s):

Norio Baba ◽

Norihiko Ichise ◽

Syunya Watanabe

Keyword(s):

Experimental Study ◽

Spherical Aberration ◽

Incident Beam ◽

Optical Parameters ◽

Beam Tilting ◽

Illumination Method ◽

Restoration Method ◽

Illumination Mode

The tilted beam illumination method is used to improve the resolution comparing with the axial illumination mode. Using this advantage, a restoration method of several tilted beam images covering the full azimuthal range was proposed by Saxton, and experimentally examined. To make this technique more reliable it seems that some practical problems still remain. In this report the restoration was attempted and the problems were considered. In our study, four problems were pointed out for the experiment of the restoration. (1) Accurate beam tilt adjustment to fit the incident beam to the coma-free axis for the symmetrical beam tilting over the full azimuthal range. (2) Accurate measurements of the optical parameters which are necessary to design the restoration filter. Even if the spherical aberration coefficient Cs is known with accuracy and the axial astigmatism is sufficiently compensated, at least the defocus value must be measured. (3) Accurate alignment of the tilt-azimuth series images.

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