Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/worpps/83.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Dercon, Stefan
  • Hoddinott, John
  • Krishnan, Pramila
  • Woldehannnam, Tassew
Abstract
"Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household living standards, study the correlates of participation in groups and formal and informal networks, and discuss the relationship of networks with access to other forms of capital. In this context, they assess how one form of collective action, iddir, or burial societies, help households attenuate the impact of illness. They find that iddir effectively deal with problems of asymmetric information by restricting membership geographically, imposing a membership fee, and conducting checks on how the funds were spent. The study also finds that while iddir help poor households cope with individual health shocks, but shows that the better-off households belong to more groups and have larger networks. In addition, where households have limited ability to develop spatial networks, collective action has limited ability to respond to covariate shocks. Therefore, realism is needed in terms of the ability of collective action to respond to shocks, and direct public action is more appropriate to deal with common shocks." authors' abstract

Suggested Citation

  • Dercon, Stefan & Hoddinott, John & Krishnan, Pramila & Woldehannnam, Tassew, 2008. "Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia," CAPRi working papers 83, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:worpps:83
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifpri.org/cdmref/p15738coll2/id/133899/filename/134119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ethan Ligon & Jonathan P. Thomas & Tim Worrall, 2000. "Mutual Insurance, Individual Savings and Limited Commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(2), pages 216-246, April.
    2. Place, Frank & Kariuki, Gatarwa & Wangila, Justine & Kristjanson, Patti & Makauki, Adolf & Ndubi, Jessica, 2002. "Assessing the factors underlying differences in group performance: methodological issues and empirical findings from the highlands of Central Kenya," CAPRi working papers 25, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 847-904.
    4. Isham, Jonathan & Kahkonen, Satu, 2002. "Institutional Determinants of the Impact of Community-Based Water Services: Evidence from Sri Lanka and India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(3), pages 667-691, April.
    5. Swallow, Brent M. & Johnson, Nancy & Knox, Anna & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela, 2004. "Property rights and collective action in watersheds," 2020 vision briefs 11 No. 12, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    7. Hoddinott, John & Quisumbing, Agnes, 2003. "Methods for microeconometric risk and vulnerability assessments," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 29138, The World Bank.
    8. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    9. Haddad, Lawrence James & Maluccio, John A., 2002. "Trust, membership in groups, and household welfare," FCND discussion papers 135, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Dercon, Stefan & De Weerdt, Joachim & Bold, Tessa & Pankhurst, Alula, 2006. "Group-based funeral insurance in Ethiopia and Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 685-703, April.
    11. Andrew D. Foster & Mark Rosenzweig, 1996. "Financial Intermediation, Transfers and Commitment: Do Banks Crowd Out Private Insurance Arrangements in Low-Income Rural Areas?," Home Pages _053, University of Pennsylvania.
    12. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gubert, Flore, 2007. "The formation of risk sharing networks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 326-350, July.
    13. Fafchamps, Marcel & Lund, Susan, 2003. "Risk-sharing networks in rural Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 261-287, August.
    14. Garance Genicot & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Group Formation in Risk-Sharing Arrangements," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 87-113.
    15. Nancy McCarthy & Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, 2004. "Resource Management under Climatic Risk: A Case Study from Niger," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 120-142.
    16. White, T Anderson & Runge, C Ford, 1994. "Common Property and Collective Action: Lessons from Cooperative Watershed Management in Haiti," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 1-41, October.
    17. Powell, James L., 1984. "Least absolute deviations estimation for the censored regression model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-325, July.
    18. Haddad, Lawrence & Maluccio, John A, 2003. "Trust, Membership in Groups, and Household Welfare: Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 573-601, April.
    19. Stefan Dercon & Pramila Krishnan, 2000. "In Sickness and in Health: Risk Sharing within Households in Rural Ethiopia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 688-727, August.
    20. Russell Davidson & James MacKinnon, 2000. "Bootstrap tests: how many bootstraps?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 55-68.
    21. Stefan Dercon, 2002. "Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 141-166, September.
    22. Kariuki, Gatarwa & Place, Frank, 2005. "Initiatives for rural development through collective action: the case of household participation in group activities in the highlands of Central Kenya," CAPRi working papers 43, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    23. Narayan, Deepa & Pritchett, Lant, 1999. "Cents and Sociability: Household Income and Social Capital in Rural Tanzania," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(4), pages 871-897, July.
    24. Pender, John L. & Scherr, Sara J., 1999. "Organizational development and natural resource management: evidence from central Honduras," EPTD discussion papers 49, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    25. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2003. "Consumption insurance and vulnerability to poverty," FCND briefs 155, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    26. Kaivan Munshi & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2005. "Why is Mobility in India so Low? Social Insurance, Inequality, and Growth," CID Working Papers 121, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    27. Stefan Dercon & John Hoddinott & Tassew Woldehanna, 2005. "Shocks and Consumption in 15 Ethiopian Villages, 1999--2004," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 14(4), pages 559-585, December.
    28. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    29. Bardhan, Pranab, 2000. "Irrigation and Cooperation: An Empirical Analysis of 48 Irrigation Communities in South India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(4), pages 847-865, July.
    30. Ahuja, Vinod, 1998. "Land degradation, agricultural productivity and common property: evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 7-34, February.
    31. Knox, Anna & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela & Hazell, P. B. R., 1998. "Property rights, collective action and technologies for natural resource management: a conceptual framework," CAPRi working papers 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kibrom A. Abay & Goytom A. Kahsay & Guush Berhane, 2018. "Social Networks and Factor Markets: Panel Data Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(1), pages 174-190, January.
    2. Flory, Jeffrey A., 2018. "Formal finance and informal safety nets of the poor: Evidence from a savings field experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 517-533.
    3. Sabina Alkire, 2011. "Multidimensional Poverty and its Discontents," OPHI Working Papers 46, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    4. Gray, Clark & Mueller, Valerie, 2012. "Drought and Population Mobility in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 134-145.
    5. Anderberg, Dan & Morsink, Karlijn, 2020. "The introduction of formal insurance and its effect on redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 22-45.
    6. de Brauw, Alan & Mueller, Valerie & Woldehanna, Tassew, 2013. "Motives to Remit: Evidence from Tracked Internal Migrants in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-23.
    7. Silas Ongudi & Djiby Thiam & Mario J. Miranda & Sam Abdoul, 2024. "The direct and indirect effects of cash transfer program on the consumption of nutrients: Evidence from Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 55(3), pages 454-478, May.
    8. de Brauw, Alan & Mueller, Valerie & Woldehanna, Tassew, 2011. "Insurance motives to remit: Evidence from a matched sample of Ethiopian internal migrants," IFPRI discussion papers 1090, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Kanwal Zahra & Tasneem Zafar, 2015. "Marginality as a Root Cause of Urban Poverty: A Case Study of Punjab," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 629-650.
    10. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & McNiven, Scott & Godquin, Marie, 2008. "Shocks, groups, and networks in Bukidnon, Philippines," CAPRi working papers 84, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Dercon, Stefan & Hill, Ruth Vargas & Clarke, Daniel & Outes-Leon, Ingo & Seyoum Taffesse, Alemayehu, 2014. "Offering rainfall insurance to informal insurance groups: Evidence from a field experiment in Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 132-143.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & McNiven, Scott & Godquin, Marie, 2008. "Shocks, groups, and networks in Bukidnon, Philippines," CAPRi working papers 84, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Masahiro Shoji & Keitaro Aoyagi & Ryuji Kasahara & Yasuyuki Sawada, 2020. "Motives behind community participation: Evidence from natural and artefactual field experiments in Sri Lanka," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 577-600, December.
    3. Juan M. Gallego & Mariapia Mendola, 2013. "Labour Migration and Social Networks Participation in Southern Mozambique," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(320), pages 721-759, October.
    4. Dercon, Stefan & Bold, Tessa, 2014. "Insurance companies of the poor," CEPR Discussion Papers 10278, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Shoji, Masahiro & Aoyagi, Keitaro & Kasahara, Ryuji & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2010. "Motives behind Community Participation," Working Papers 16, JICA Research Institute.
    6. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    7. Xiao Yu Wang, 2014. "Risk Sorting, Portfolio Choice, and Endogenous Informal Insurance," NBER Working Papers 20429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kailash Chandra Pradhan & Shrabani Mukherjee, 2018. "Covariate and Idiosyncratic Shocks and Coping Strategies for Poor and Non-poor Rural Households in India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(1), pages 101-127, March.
    9. Gulesci,Selim, 2020. "Poverty Alleviation and Interhousehold Transfers : Evidence from BRAC's Graduation Program in Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9467, The World Bank.
    10. Jaramillo, Fernando & Kempf, Hubert & Moizeau, Fabien, 2015. "Heterogeneity and the formation of risk-sharing coalitions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 79-96.
    11. Islam, Asad & Nguyen, Chau, 2018. "Do networks matter after a natural disaster? A study of resource sharing within an informal network after Cyclone Aila," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 249-268.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11437 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Juan Daniel Hernandez & Fernando Jaramillo & Hubert Kempf & Fabien Moizeau & Thomas Vendryes, 2023. "Limited Commitment, Social Control and Risk-Sharing Coalitions in Village Economies," Documents de recherche 23-03, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    14. Tesfamicheal Wossen & Salvatore Falco & Thomas Berger & William McClain, 2016. "You are not alone: social capital and risk exposure in rural Ethiopia," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(4), pages 799-813, August.
    15. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gubert, Flore, 2007. "The formation of risk sharing networks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 326-350, July.
    16. Madeira, Gabriel A. & Townsend, Robert M., 2008. "Endogenous groups and dynamic selection in mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 259-293, September.
    17. Di Falco, Salvatore & Bulte, Erwin, 2013. "The Impact of Kinship Networks on the Adoption of Risk-Mitigating Strategies in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 100-110.
    18. Daniel J. Clarke, 2011. "Reinsuring the Poor: Group Microinsurance Design and Costly State Verification," Economics Series Working Papers 573, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    19. Lee Cronk & Athena Aktipis, 2021. "Design principles for risk-pooling systems," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(7), pages 825-833, July.
    20. Bet Caeyers & Stefan Dercon, 2012. "Political Connections and Social Networks in Targeted Transfer Programs: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 639 - 675.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective action; Burial societies; Shocks; Vulnerability; Poverty; Networks;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fpr:worpps:83. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.