Risk and Return in Village Economies

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Samphantharak, Krislert; Townsend, Robert M.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20160125
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1-40
• 关键词: market participation; asset prices; PRODUCTIVITY; consumption; INVESTMENT; equilibrium; insurance; finance; access; WEALTH

摘要

This paper provides a theory-based empirical framework for understanding the risk and return on productive capital assets and their allocation across activities in an economy characterized by idiosyncratic and aggregate risk and thin formal markets for real and financial assets. We apply our framework to households running business enterprises in Thai villages with extensive networks, taking advantage of panel data: income, assets, consumption, gifts, and loans. We decompose risk and estimate the risk premia faced by households, distinguishing aggregate risk from idiosyncratic, potentially diversifiable risk. This distinction matters for estimating measures of underlying productivity and has important policy implications.