UC San Diego

This dissertation consists of three freestanding chapters, broadly linked by the theme ofanalyzing the macroeconomic effects of various policies using models of imperfect insurance. The term “imperfect insurance” refers to the notion that individuals and households cannot costlessly transfer resources between different states of the world and are subject to risk when facing uncertain outcomes. Chapter 1 examines the macroeconomic impact of public health insurance expansion in such a model where individuals face idiosyncratic health risk. Chapter 2 examines the impact of publicly provided cash transfers for job searchers who face job finding risk. Finally, Chapter 3 uses a incomplete markets macroeconomic model to quantitatively explore the role of various cross-country difference in explaining cross-country COVID outcomes.