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Growing Apart: Declining Within- and Across-Locality Insurance in Rural China

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  • Zheng, Yu
  • Attanasio, Orazio
  • Meghir, Costas
  • Mommaerts, Corina

Abstract

We consider risk sharing in rural China during rapid economic transformation from the late 1980s through the late 2000s. We document an erosion of consumption insurance against both household-level idiosyncratic and village-level aggregate income shocks, and show that this decline is related to observable economic changes: the shift from agriculture to wage employment, the decline of publicly owned Township-and-Village Enterprises, and increased migrant work. Further evidence suggests that as these changes took place at the village level, higher levels of government failed to offset these effects through the tax-and-transfer system, leaving households more exposed to both idiosyncratic and village-aggregate shocks.

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  • Zheng, Yu & Attanasio, Orazio & Meghir, Costas & Mommaerts, Corina, 2021. "Growing Apart: Declining Within- and Across-Locality Insurance in Rural China," CEPR Discussion Papers 16654, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16654
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    2. Da Zhao & Jingyuan Guo & Hong Zou & Ze Song, 2022. "From Price to Gain: The Evolution of Household Income Volatility and Consumption Insurance in Urban China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(6), pages 113-136, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption insurance; Risk-sharing; Rural china;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

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