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Optimal Risk Sharing Under Limited Commitment: Evidence From Rural Vietnam

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  • Eozenou, Patrick

Abstract

We use panel data from a household survey conducted in Vietnam to analyze the effectiveness of informal risk sharing arrangements in protecting household consumption from idiosyncratic income shocks. We focus on the effects of reported harvest shocks and of estimated shocks to agricultural revenues on adult equivalent consumption. The full-insurance allocation is tested against a specified alternative under which contracts are not fully enforceable ex-post. We find that farmers hit by unfavorable events stabilize their consumption level below the village aggregate level, irrespective of the level of realized shocks. At the same time, farmers experiencing more favorable shocks enjoy higher consumption in proportion to the realized value of idiosyncratic shocks. Together, these finding are consistent with a simple 2-period model of optimal risk sharing with one-sided limited commitment. These results hold for total consumption and for non-durable consumption. We also find however some evidence supporting the full insurance hypothesis for food consumption.

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  • Eozenou, Patrick, 2008. "Optimal Risk Sharing Under Limited Commitment: Evidence From Rural Vietnam," MPRA Paper 12688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:12688
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mace, Barbara J, 1991. "Full Insurance in the Presence of Aggregate Uncertainty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 928-956, October.
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    8. Ethan Ligon & Jonathan P. Thomas & Tim Worrall, 2002. "Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(1), pages 209-244.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tobias Broer, 2013. "The Wrong Shape of Insurance? What Cross-Sectional Distributions Tell Us about Models of Consumption Smoothing," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 107-140, October.
    2. Thang T. Vo, 2024. "Adverse shocks, vulnerability, and coping by rural households in Vietnam," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 42(4), July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption; Risk-sharing; Informal Insurance; Vietnam;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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