February 13, 2025

The Effect of Adverse Life-Events on Income Trajectories

This paper studies and compares the effect of different adverse life events on individuals’ income trajectories. We use a harmonized research design across events and assess the effect of adverse events on different margins. We compare their effect on primary and disposable household income in order to measure the public insurance to the shocks provided by the tax and transfer system.
balance

Both between different events and within different groups for a given event, we find that the importance of government insurance increases with the severity of the shock on primary income.

Authors

Photo of Wiljan van den Berge
Wiljan van den Berge +31 88 9846230 Get in touch Read more
Maxime Tô IPP
Julie Tréguier DIW