After the Drought: The Impact of Microinsurance on Consumption Smoothing and Asset Protection
利用肯尼亚农村的随机对照试验数据，研究发现创新型小额保险平均减少了贫困家庭在应对冲击时出售资产和削减消费这两种高成本应对策略，且效果因财富水平而异。
Abstract To cope with shocks, poor households with inadequate access to financial markets can sell assets to smooth consumption and, or reduce consumption to protect assets. Both coping strategies can be economically costly and contribute to the transmission of poverty, yet limited evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of insurance to mitigate these costs in risk‐prone developing economies. Utilizing data from an RCT in rural Kenya, this paper estimates that on average an innovative microinsurance scheme reduces both forms of costly coping. Threshold econometrics grounded in theory reveal a more complex pattern: (i) wealthier households primarily cope by selling assets, and insurance makes them 96 percentage points less likely to sell assets following a shock; (ii) poorer households cope primarily by cutting food consumption, and insurance reduces by 49 percentage points their reliance on this strategy.