Authors
Attila Ambrus, Markus Mobius, Adam Szeidl
Publication date
2014/1/1
Journal
American Economic Review
Volume
104
Issue
1
Pages
149-182
Publisher
American Economic Association
Description
We develop a model in which connections between individuals serve as social collateral to enforce informal insurance payments. We show that: (i) The degree of insurance is governed by the expansiveness of the network, measured with the per capita number of connections that groups have with the rest of the community. “Two-dimensional” networks—like real-world networks in Peruvian villages—are sufficiently expansive to allow very good risk-sharing. (ii) In second-best arrangements, insurance is local: agents fully share shocks within, but imperfectly between endogenously emerging risk-sharing groups. We also discuss how endogenous social collateral affects our results. (JEL D85, G22, O15, O17, Z13)
Total citations
2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024611821232924282424345441394234
Scholar articles
A Ambrus, M Mobius, A Szeidl - American Economic Review, 2014