RISK SHARING, COMMITMENT, AND INFORMATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barr, Abigail; Genicot, Garance
• 署名单位: University of Oxford; Georgetown University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1162/JEEA.2008.6.6.1151
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 1151-1185
• 关键词: market stage; insurance; societies; networks; ORDER

摘要

This paper describes and analyzes the results of a unique field experiment especially designed to test the effects of the level of commitment and information available to individuals when sharing risk. We find that limiting exogenously provided commitment is associated with less risk sharing, whereas limiting information on defections can be associated with more risk sharing. These results can be understood by distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, and by recognizing that social sanctions are costly to inflict or that individuals suffer from time-inconsistent preferences. Comparing the groups formed within our experiment with the real life risk-sharing networks in a few villages allows us to test the external validity of our experiment and suggests that the results are salient to our understanding of risk-sharing arrangements observed in developing countries.