Limited Insurance within the Household: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya

Jonathan Robinson
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引用次数: 119

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.
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家庭内有限保险:来自肯尼亚实地试验的证据
本文提出了一项随机现场实验的结果,以检验有限承诺(由于不完全的合同可执行性)在解释肯尼亚家庭内部风险分担安排中的重要性。这项实验对142名日薪工作者及其配偶进行了为期8周的跟踪调查。每个人每周有50%的机会受到150肯尼亚先令(2美元)的收入冲击(相当于男性1.5天的收入和女性1周的收入)。本文有两个主要结论。首先,由于实验支付是随机的,它们允许对分配帕累托效率进行直接测试。我拒绝效率,因为男性私人物品的支出对收到付款很敏感。其次,实验改变了夫妻之间实验支付的家庭内部相关水平。我发现,当冲击是独立的或负相关的时候,女性给丈夫的转账数额更大,这与有限承诺的存在是一致的。我发现男性的转移没有差异,可能是因为冲击太小,不足以使有限的承诺约束对他们产生约束。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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