A Dark Side of Social Capital? Kinship, Consumption, and Savings
研究南非夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省贫困黑人家庭中亲属共享规范如何影响消费和储蓄，发现家庭通过积累不可共享耐用品和减少流动资产储蓄来规避共享义务，这可能削弱收入增长并形成文化性贫困陷阱。
Abstract We explore whether traditional sharing norms in kinship networks affect consumption and accumulation decisions of poor black households in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using a proxy for the number of family dependents, our results are consistent with the interpretation that households try to evade their ‘sharing obligations’ by (i) accumulating durables that are non-sharable at the expense of durables that may be shared and (ii) reducing savings in liquid assets. By attenuating accumulation incentives, kinship sharing may come at the expense of income growth – if so, a culturally-induced poverty trap can possibly eventuate. We demonstrate tentative evidence that more extensive kinship networks are associated with lower incomes.