We investigate risk sharing without commitment by designing an experiment to match a simple model of voluntary insurance between two agents when aggregate income is constant. Participants are matched in pairs. Each period, they receive their income with or without a random component h that one...

This paper presents the first laboratory study of risk-sharing without commitment. Our experiment captures the main features of a simple model of voluntary insurance between two agents. In the model, two individuals interact over a potential infinite horizon and suffer random income shocks....

In this paper, individuals are characterized by their identity -- an ideal code of conduct -- and by a level of tolerance for behaviors that differ from their own ideal. Individuals first choose their behavior, then form social networks. This paper studies the possibility of compromise, i.e....

This paper shows that when donors and recipients care about each other --two-sided altruism -- the presence of asymmetry of information about the donor's income leads very naturally to a signaling game. A donor who cares about the recipient's welfare has incentives to appear richer than he is...

Using data from an experiment conducted in 70 Colombian communities, we investigate who pools risk with whom when trust is crucial for enforcing risk pooling arrangements. We explore the roles played by risk attitudes and social networks. Both empirically and theoretically, we find that close...

While a large literature has established that migration experience among an individual's family and community networks tends to encourage migration, there is little research investigating the mechanism by which networks exert such effects. This paper aims to determine the relative importance of...

Achieving peace and building the institutions that will make it last require much time and effort on the part of adversaries. While making this effort, the likelihood of peace is uncertain, and preparations for conflict are ongoing. Using a model that takes such considerations into account,...