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Risk Pooling through Transfers in Rural Ethiopia

Author

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  • Lei Pan

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract
It is often assumed that transfers received from governments, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), friends and relatives help rural households to pool risk. In this paper I investigate two functions of transfers in Ethiopia: risk pooling and income redistribution. Unlike most of the literature this paper investigates not only whether but also how much risk pooling is achieved. I find evidence that transfers from governments/NGOs play a role in insuring covariant income shocks, (weak) evidence that transfers from friends/relatives insure idiosyncratic income shocks and evidence that transfers target the poor households. However, the contributions of transfers to risk pooling and income redistribution are economically very limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Lei Pan, 2007. "Risk Pooling through Transfers in Rural Ethiopia," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-014/2, Tinbergen Institute, revised 28 Sep 2007.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20070014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Marco d’Errico & Donato Romano & Rebecca Pietrelli, 2018. "Household resilience to food insecurity: evidence from Tanzania and Uganda," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(4), pages 1033-1054, August.
    2. Haddis Solomon & Yoko Kijima, 2022. "Does Land Certification Mitigate the Negative Impact of Weather Shocks? Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Berloffa, Gabriella & Modena, Francesca, 2013. "Income shocks, coping strategies, and consumption smoothing: An application to Indonesian data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 158-171.
    4. Baird, Timothy D. & Gray, Clark L., 2014. "Livelihood Diversification and Shifting Social Networks of Exchange: A Social Network Transition?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 14-30.
    5. Thomas Pave Sohnesen, 2020. "Two Sides to Same Drought: Measurement and Impact of Ethiopia’s 2015 Historical Drought," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 83-101, April.
    6. Kananurak, Papar & Sirisankanan, Aeggarchat, 2016. "Do Public Transfers Crowd-out Private Transfers? Evidence from the Thai Socio-Economic Panel Survey," Asian Journal of Applied Economics, Kasetsart University, Center for Applied Economics Research, vol. 23(2), December.
    7. Gao, Jianfeng & Mills, Bradford F., 2021. "Influence of weather shocks and coping strategies on food consumption: Evidence from rural Niger," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 16(3), September.
    8. Chris Elbers, 2009. "Solving The Discrete-Time Stochastic Ramsey Model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-018/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. d'Errico, Marco & Di Giuseppe, Stefania, 2018. "Resilience mobility in Uganda: A dynamic analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 78-96.
    10. Bhattamishra, Ruchira & Barrett, Christopher B., 2010. "Community-Based Risk Management Arrangements: A Review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 923-932, July.
    11. Hotte, Rozenn & Marazyan, Karine, 2020. "Demand for insurance and within-kin-group marriages: Evidence from a West-African country," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    12. Alpaslan Akay & Peter Martinsson & Haileselassie Medhin & Stefan Trautmann, 2012. "Attitudes toward uncertainty among the poor: an experiment in rural Ethiopia," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 453-464, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk; Insurance; Income redistribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

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