Recent research on household `vulnerability' has led to an increased appreciation of the welfare costs of risk. Measuring the risk borne by a particular household has generally involved the use of panel data, and in particular the use of time series variation in household expenditures to...

Using data on individual consumption expenditures from a sample of farm households in the Philippines, we construct a direct test of the risk-sharing implications of the collective household model. We are able to contrast the efficient outcomes predicted by the collective household model with...

We conduct field experiments in rural Paraguay to measure the value of reciprocity within social networks in a set of fifteen villages. These experiments involve conducting dictator- type games; different treatments involve manipulating the information and choice that individuals have in the...