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Working Paper
Integrated household surveys: an assessment of U.S. methods and an innovation
We present a vision for improving household financial surveys by integrating responses from questionnaires more completely with financial statements and combining them with payments data from diaries. Integrated household financial accounts?-balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows?-are used to assess the degree of integration in leading U.S. household surveys, focusing on inconsistencies in measures of the change in cash. Diaries of consumer payment choice can improve dynamic integration. Using payments data, we construct a statement of liquidity flows: a detailed ...
Working Paper
Portfolio choices and risk preferences in village economies
We use a model of optimal portfolio choice to measure heterogeneity in risk aversion among households in Thai villages. There is substantial heterogeneity in risk preferences, positively correlated in most villages with alternative estimates based on a full risk-sharing model.
Report
Heterogeneity and risk sharking in village economies
We show how to use panel data on household consumption to directly estimate households? risk preferences. Specifically, we measure heterogeneity in risk aversion among households in Thai villages using a full risk-sharing model, which we then test allowing for this heterogeneity. There is substantial, statistically significant heterogeneity in estimated risk preferences. Full insurance cannot be rejected. As the risk sharing, as-if-complete-markets theory might predict, estimated risk preferences are unrelated to wealth or other characteristics. The heterogeneity matters for policy: Although ...
Working Paper
Heterogeneity and risk sharing in village economies
We measure heterogeneity in risk aversion among households in Thai villages using a full risk-sharing model and complement the results with a measure based on optimal portfolio choice. Among households with relatives living in the same village, full insurance cannot be rejected, suggesting that relatives provide something close to a complete-markets consumption allocation. There is substantial heterogeneity in risk preferences estimated from the full-insurance model, positively correlated in most villages with portfolio-choice estimates. The heterogeneity matters for policy: Although the ...