Health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households: Does microcredit have a role to play?

This paper estimates, using a large panel data set from rural Bangladesh, the effects of health shocks on household consumption and how access to microcredit affects households’ response to such shocks. Households appear to be fairly well insured against health shocks. Our results suggest that households sell livestock in response to health shocks and short term insurance is therefore attained at a significant long term cost. However microcredit has a significant mitigating effect. Households that have access to microcredit do not need to sell livestock in order to insure consumption. Microcredit organizations and microcredit therefore have an insurance role to play, an aspect that has not been analyzed previously.     

Recursive equilibrium in endogenous growth models with incomplete markets

This paper analyzes the existence of recursive equilibria in a class of convex growth models with incomplete markets. Households have identical CRRA-preferences, production displays constant returns to scale with respect to physical and human capital, and all markets are competitive. There are aggregate productivity shocks that affect aggregate returns to physical and human capital investment (stock returns and wages), and there are idiosyncratic shocks to human capital (idiosyncratic depreciation shocks) that only affect individual human capital returns. Aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks follow a joint Markov process. Conditional on the aggregate state, idiosyncratic shocks are independently distributed over time and identically distributed across households. Finally, households have the opportunity to trade assets in zero net supply with payoffs that depend on the aggregate shock, but markets are incomplete in the sense that there are no assets with payoffs depending on idiosyncratic shocks. It is shown that there exists a recursive equilibrium for which equilibrium prices (returns) only depend on the exogenous aggregate shock variable (the wealth distribution is not a relevant state variable). Moreover, the allocation associated with this recursive equilibrium is identical to the equilibrium allocation of an economy in which households live in autarky and face both aggregate and idiosyncratic risk.I would like to thank for helpful comments Peter Howitt, Bob Lucas, Michael Magill, Tomo Nakajima, Herakles Polemarchakis, Martine Quinzii, Kevin Reffett, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at various universities and conferences.     

Consumption smoothing in Russia

This paper uses panel data from rounds V–IX of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to examine the extent to which households are able to protect their consumption from fluctuations in their income. It is found that consumption is only partially protected from idiosyncratic shocks to income with food consumption being better protected than non‐food consumption expenditures. This suggests that adjustments in non‐food expenditures may be an important component of the risk management tools of Russian households. The analysis also provides evidence on the extent and nature of the coping strategies adopted by households. It is demonstrated that households complement their self‐insurance strategies, of borrowing, adjusting their labour supply, and selling assets, with informal risk sharing arrangements with households within their community. An examination of the role of sample selection confirmed that these findings are quite robust to this potential source of bias. Furthermore, accounting for the role of measurement and imputation errors in the measure of household income revealed that OLS estimates may yield a misleading picture about the extent to which urban and rural households are insured from idiosyncratic income shocks. JEL classification: D1, R2, P5.     

DEGREASING THE WHEELS OF FINANCE

Can there be too much trading in financial markets? We construct a dynamic general equilibrium model, where agents face idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. A financial market allows agents to adjust their portfolio of liquid and illiquid assets in response to these shocks. The optimal policy is to restrict access to this market because portfolio choices exhibit a pecuniary externality: Agents do not take into account that by holding more of the liquid asset, they not only acquire additional insurance against these liquidity shocks, but also marginally increase the value of the liquid asset, which improves insurance for other market participants.     

Risk coping and starvation in rural China

We use a 3-year panel from two poor provinces in Southern China to examine the nature of risks to which rural households are exposed and their ability to insure calorie consumption and spending of total consumption against idiosyncratic shocks to their income. We find that idiosyncratic risks are indeed the main source of income variation in the sample, consumption is better insured than total spending. Unlike total spending where full insurance is rejected in most cases, calorie intake is completely insured for both land-rich and land-poor households in both provinces. Access to even modest amounts of land significantly enhances households’ ability to guard against total spending. Land-rich households are much better insured against total spending than land-poor households. The results are robust across model specifications although Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimations increase the magnitude of difference in total spending between the land-rich and the land-poor. Policies targeting poverty reduction and improving land use rights and land access to the poor could potentially improve the overall risk sharing ability of the rural poor.     

When is market incompleteness irrelevant for the price of aggregate risk (and when is it not)?

In a standard incomplete markets model with a continuum of households that have constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) preferences, the absence of insurance markets for idiosyncratic labor income risk has no effect on the premium for aggregate risk if the distribution of idiosyncratic risk is independent of aggregate shocks and aggregate consumption growth is independent over time. In equilibrium, households only use the stock market to smooth consumption; the bond market is inoperative. Furthermore, the cross-sectional distributions of wealth and consumption are not affected by aggregate shocks. These results hold regardless of the persistence of idiosyncratic shocks, even when households face tight solvency constraints. A weaker irrelevance result survives when we allow for predictability in aggregate consumption growth.     

Covariate and Idiosyncratic Shocks and Coping Strategies for Poor and Non-poor Rural Households in India

The objective of the paper is to track the association between different type of shocks experienced by rural households and corresponding coping strategies opted by them as they are, not only exposed to household-level and community level shocks, but also, lack effective risk management strategies which make them vulnerable to get into chronic poverty. A probit analysis has been used to articulate the comparative static distinction of risk management strategies between poor and non poor rural households using Additional Rural Incomes Survey/Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (ARIS/REDS) data surveyed by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in rural India across 17 states to get a comparative static analysis. Households, generally, withdraw savings, seek remittances from migrant family members, take loan from formal and informal lenders and sell their existing assets and participate in Government sponsored welfare based programs to control after effect of shocks. Comparatively non-poor rural households could build up safety net (precautionary measure) to cope with price rise and other sudden shocks. But, extremely poor, generally, if don’t get help from relatives or can’t borrow from informal sources, ultimately starve at the time of sudden shocks. The welfare based government programs fail to arrest this extreme situation of grief during the idiosyncratic shocks.

     

Can China's new rural pension scheme alleviate the relative poverty of rural households? An empirical analysis based on the PSM-DID method

Based on five-period panel data from the China Family Panel Studies 2010–2018, this paper uses the propensity score matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method to comprehensively evaluate the effects of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) on alleviating rural households' relative poverty. At the same time, based on the theory of sustainable livelihoods of rural households, the mediating effects model is applied to analyse the mechanism of rural households' livelihood capital. The results of the study are as follows. (1) The NRPS helps alleviate the relative poverty of rural households. (2) The livelihood capital of rural households is an important mechanism for the NRPS to alleviate the relative poverty of rural households, and social capital, financial capital, and human capital all play a part in the mediating effect. (3) The results of the heterogeneity tests based on the stage of rural households' participation in the NRPS and the region of participation in the NRPS indicate that the governance effects of the NRPS on rural households' relative poverty are more significant among households in the contributory stage and the central and western regions. Additionally, the results are supported by robustness tests, such as replacing the dependent variable and the PSM method. The findings of this paper have important implications for the establishment of a long-term mechanism to address relative poverty and the construction of a more efficient and inclusive rural social pension insurance system in China and other developing countries.     

Intrahousehold moral hazard frictions and household poverty traps in rural India

We empirically study the role of assets held by women in the creation of household wealth using data from rural India. We design a streamlined model of intrahousehold project funding where moral hazard frictions between spouses and women's asset control are the main ingredients. As predicted by the model, the data show that household asset accumulation depends on women's asset control in a non-monotonic way. Results indicate no presence of multiple equilibrium poverty traps, but do show that exogenous negative shocks will trigger assets aggregation within households where both spouses are present. This resilience mechanism is, however, not found in female headed household as these households have a monotonic relationship between women's wealth control and asset creation. We thus argue that policies to support women's empowerment need to distinguish women based on their individual wealth levels and headship status to enhance household well-being in remote Indian communities.     

Consumption risk-sharing under terror shocks: Evidence from value-chain network rosters in Nigeria

Households in Nigeria live in inherently risky environments; accentuated by the preponderance of terror incidences, banditry, and farmer–herder-related clashes that are more concentrated in the northern than southern parts of the country. This study examines the proposition that households with a robust network roster—especially networks related to ethnicities and financial remittances from outside their communities—are better able to weather the idiosyncratic and aggregate impact of terror-related shocks; and thus, experience less consumption variability to terror-related shock than other similar households without the “insurance” of an external network. Our main empirical strategy applies a panel difference-in-differences specification to three waves of the LSMS-ISA surveys for Nigeria. The results from the study indicate that having external networks outside the community is an important coping mechanism for terror-related shocks, both for overall welfare and food consumption. The difference in consumption variability between groups with outside network “insurance” and those without could be as high as 20 percentage points. Thus, risk-sharing arrangements for households should exploit outside network insurance mechanisms to mitigate welfare losses from terror-related shocks.     

Investment and deposit contracts under costly intermediation and aggregate volatility

This paper examines how volatility affects investment and the form of deposit contracts in a three-period model where capital formation is financed by bank credit and lenders face state verification and enforcement costs. Firms face both idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks, and agents are initially risk neutral. We show that intermediation costs magnify the incidence of macroeconomic volatility on banks' expected losses and have an adverse effect on investment. With risk-averse consumers, the impact of banks' expected losses on investment is mitigated because the equilibrium deposit contract provides partial insurance against adverse macroeconomic shocks.     

健康冲击对中国老年家庭资产组合选择的影响

利用中国健康与养老追踪调查(CHARLS)数据,研究健康冲击对老年家庭资产组合的影响。把健康冲击分为急性健康冲击和慢性健康冲击两类。遭受急性健康冲击时,老年家庭持有的风险资产减少;遭受慢性健康冲击时,投资于耐用消费性资产的量减少,但拥有房产价值的量增加;健康冲击对城乡老年家庭资产组合的影响不尽相同。     

Risk insurance in a transition economy

The hypothesis of Pareto‐optimal risk‐sharing is tested in a transition economy using a new dataset of a representative sample of 364 rural households from Romania. Income shocks are identified as instances of adverse weather, crop failure, animal diseases, illness, and unemployment spells. Despite limited participation of Romanian rural households in formal insurance and credit markets, we fail to reject the hypothesis of full insurance of total non‐durable consumption and its components. Survey responses indicate that the main channels of consumption smoothing are self‐insurance (for adverse weather, crop failure and animal diseases), public transfers (for unemployment spells, maternity and childcare), and to a lesser extent, family ties. We find that adverse weather is associated with higher growth rates of non‐food expenditures. Furthermore, richer households are better able to cope with crop failure than poorer households. An alternative explanation to our not rejecting the hypothesis of full insurance is that some shocks to consumption (such as illness) play the role of preference shifters of the utility function.     

农户金融资产配置的门槛效应对收入差距的影响机制——基于微观面板门限协整模型的经验与证据

基于2100户农户2005-2009年的微观面板数据,本文构建了农户金融资产配置与收入差距间的两阶段面板门限协整回归,对金融资产配置作用于农户收入差距的机制进行了分析和检验。论文从数理模型上证明了金融资产配置差异对农户收入差距的影响机制;利用非线性门限协整回归的极大似然估计量,本文估计了我国农户金融资产配置与收入差距的两阶段门限模型,并对其模型选择及其门槛效应进行了检验,模型的回归结果及门限参数的变化轨迹证实了金融资产配置的门槛前后农户收入的差异性,农户金融资产配置的差异确实对农户收入产生了重要影响;因此,改善农户金融资产配置的环境及结构可能有助于消减农户间的收入差距。     

Toward an Improved Definition of Poverty

This paper is motivated by the observation that the type and the combination of assets are associated with the likelihood of poor households' experience of shock. Focusing on the case of adivasi households in the south Indian state of Kerala, we find that the type, number and combinations of specific assets (primarily social and physical capital) yield varied magnitudes of association with households' experience of shock, which is a measure of vulnerability. Thus, going beyond mere welfare considerations, social policies that prioritise and sequence the type and combination of asset building based on contextual factors help minimise the incidence of shocks and improve livelihood choices.     

IDIOSYNCRATIC AND AGGREGATE RISKS,INEQUALITY AND GROWTH

The paper disaggregates productivity shocks at a firm level into idiosyncratic and aggregate risks, and studies their impacts on inequality, growth and welfare. It develops a growth model with human capital and incomplete insurance and credit markets that provides a closed‐form solution for income inequality dynamics. We find that uninsured idiosyncratic risks are the most important determinants of inequality, growth and welfare. They are the source of nondegenerate wealth distribution. A lower weight of these shocks leads to lower steady‐state inequality, higher growth and welfare. A redistribution of income that serves as social insurance against such risks increases welfare and decreases inequality. But, it also decreases growth by distorting individual consumption and saving decisions.     

The contingent effect of social capital on performance of professional athletes: life cycle stages and changes in regulation as moderators

Motorboat racing is a sport organized as public gambling in Japan. As well as physical strength and driving technique, skills to adjust equipment are critical for racers to win a race. Based on the contingency theory of social capital, this study analysed comprehensive panel data of motorboat racers and revealed that bonding and bridging social capital had different impacts on performance according to life cycle stages of racers and changes in regulation. First, bonding social capital has a positive impact on performance when racers are less experienced and most need psychological aid stemming from strong ties. Second, bridging social capital has a positive impact on performance when racers are more experienced and have accumulated absorptive capacity to learn efficiently from diverse sources of knowledge. Third, both bonding and bridging social capital lose their explanatory power after the changes in regulation that shifted ownership of propellers from racers to the authority, which could mitigate the significance of the formation of small groups among racers to share cost and knowledge regarding the improvement in propellers. Research and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

Uninsured idiosyncratic risk, liquidity constraints and aggregate fluctuations

Summary. I study the role played by uninsured idiosyncratic risk and liquidity constraints in the propagation of aggregate fluctuations. To this purpose, I compare the aggregate fluctuations of two model economies that differ in their insurance technologies only. In one of these model economies liquidity constrained households vary their holdings of a nominally denominated asset in order to buffer an uninsured idiosyncratic shock to their individual production opportunities. In the other economy every idiosyncratic component of risk can be costlessly insured. I find that the limited insurance technology implies fluctuations in output that are 20% larger, fluctuations in hours relative to output that are 9% larger, fluctuations in consumption relative to output that are 18% smaller, and a correlation of hours and productivity that is 15% smaller than those that obtain under the full insurance technology. Received: March 6, 1996; revised version August 15, 1996     

Shocks, Policy Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth in Bolivia: A Simulation Analysis

This paper analyzes how major external shocks and policy reforms affect Bolivia’s ability to achieve pro‐poor growth. Employing a recursive‐dynamic CGE model, it considers three different scenarios: an optimistic baseline scenario; a more realistic scenario that accounts for two important negative external shocks (declining capital inflows and El Niño); and a scenario that captures the combined effect of the shocks and two major reform projects (development of the gas sector and deregulation of the urban labor market). It turns out that the shocks are likely to impair Bolivia’s medium‐term development prospects, leading to marked increases in both urban and rural poverty. If the reform projects were implemented, the poverty increase caused by the shocks would be more than offset for urban households, but reinforced for rural households.     

Intra- and international risk-sharing in the short run and the long run

We investigate empirically how industrialized countries and US states share consumption risk at horizons between 1 and 30 years. US federal states share about 50% of their permanent idiosyncratic risk through cross-state capital income flows. While insurance against transitory fluctuations in output is virtually complete, OECD countries do not share any of their permanent idiosyncratic risk. Our results suggest that purely transaction cost based theories cannot explain the home bias, since the potential welfare gains from insurance against permanent shocks would by far outweigh that of insuring against transitory variation. We conclude that permanent and transitory shocks constitute two qualitatively different kinds of risk and that various forms of endogenous market incompleteness may render permanent shocks a lot harder to insure, in particular at the international level.