TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Hensel, Lukas
AU  - Abebe, Girum
AU  - Gerard, Francois
AU  - Caria, Stefano
        TI  - Mitigating the Consequences of Job Loss in Lower-Income Countries:  Evidence from Ethiopia
        PY  - 2026/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18537
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18537
        AB  - Job loss is an understudied risk for formal workers in lower-income countries. In these settings, lump-sum severance pay is often the only source of job-loss insurance. We quasi experimentally show that female factory workers in Ethiopia displaced by a tariff hike experience lasting declines in employment and consumption spending, and rising poverty. Experimentally, we find that additional lump-sum support induces early spending and reduces overall and manufacturing employment persistently. Disbursing an equivalent amount in tranches improves consumption smoothing and avoids adverse employment effects. Further, we document a high willingness to pay for additional insurance, alongside heterogeneous preferences over disbursement modality that shape responses to our interventions. These findings imply that increasing job-loss insurance raises welfare, although moving away from the lump-sum default can generate substantial additional gains.
        KW  - job loss
KW  - job-loss insurance
KW  - trade shock
        ER  -