Informal Risk Sharing, Index Insurance, and Risk Taking in Developing Countries
研究印度村庄中非正式风险分担网络如何影响农户对降雨指数保险的需求，以及保险是否促进农户投资风险技术，并分析其一般均衡效应。
Preliminary findings are presented from a research project which examined the interactions between informal risk sharing, index insurance and risk-taking. Rainfall insurance contracts were randomly offered to cultivating and landless households in a set of Indian villages where preexisting census data on caste networks allowed the characterization of the nature and extent of informal risk sharing. We study how informal risk sharing mediates the demand for index insurance, whether index insurance or informal indemnification allows farmers to invest in risky technologies, and the general equilibrium effects of offering insurance contracts to cultivators and agricultural laborers.