{"title":"家庭内有限保险:来自肯尼亚实地试验的证据","authors":"Jonathan Robinson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1282231","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8 weeks. Every week, each individual had a 50% chance of receiving a 150 Kenyan shilling (US $2) income shock (equivalent to about 1.5 days' income for men and 1 week's income for women). This paper has 2 main results. First, since the experimental payments are random, they allow for a direct test of allocative Pareto efficiency. I reject efficiency, as male private goods expenditures are sensitive to the receipt of the payment. Second, the experiment varied the level of intra-household correlation in the experimental payments between couples. I find that women send bigger transfers to their husbands when shocks are independent or negatively correlated, a result consistent with the presence of limited commitment. I find no difference in transfers for men, likely because the shocks were too small to cause the limited commitment constraint to bind for them.","PeriodicalId":106212,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family","volume":"62 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2008-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"119","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Limited Insurance within the Household: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya\",\"authors\":\"Jonathan Robinson\",\"doi\":\"10.2139/ssrn.1282231\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8 weeks. Every week, each individual had a 50% chance of receiving a 150 Kenyan shilling (US $2) income shock (equivalent to about 1.5 days' income for men and 1 week's income for women). This paper has 2 main results. First, since the experimental payments are random, they allow for a direct test of allocative Pareto efficiency. I reject efficiency, as male private goods expenditures are sensitive to the receipt of the payment. Second, the experiment varied the level of intra-household correlation in the experimental payments between couples. I find that women send bigger transfers to their husbands when shocks are independent or negatively correlated, a result consistent with the presence of limited commitment. I find no difference in transfers for men, likely because the shocks were too small to cause the limited commitment constraint to bind for them.\",\"PeriodicalId\":106212,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family\",\"volume\":\"62 4\",\"pages\":\"0\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2008-04-17\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"119\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1282231\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1282231","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
Limited Insurance within the Household: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya
This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8 weeks. Every week, each individual had a 50% chance of receiving a 150 Kenyan shilling (US $2) income shock (equivalent to about 1.5 days' income for men and 1 week's income for women). This paper has 2 main results. First, since the experimental payments are random, they allow for a direct test of allocative Pareto efficiency. I reject efficiency, as male private goods expenditures are sensitive to the receipt of the payment. Second, the experiment varied the level of intra-household correlation in the experimental payments between couples. I find that women send bigger transfers to their husbands when shocks are independent or negatively correlated, a result consistent with the presence of limited commitment. I find no difference in transfers for men, likely because the shocks were too small to cause the limited commitment constraint to bind for them.