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...

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many free agents there are (these are agents who are not under contract). We study how such a principal,...

This paper describes and analyzes the results of a unique field experiment especially designed to test the effects of the level of commitment and information available to individuals when sharing risk.  We find that limiting exogenously provided commitment is associated with less risk sharing,...

This paper describes and analyzes the results of a unique field experiment especially designed to test the effects of the level of commitment and information available to individuals when sharing risk. We find that limiting exogenously provided commitment is associated with less risk sharing,...

Using data from a field experiment conducted in seventy Colombian municipalities, we investigate who pools risk with whom when risk pooling arrangements are not formally enforced.  We explore the roles played by risk attitudes and network connections both theoretically and empirically.  We...

This paper studies the impact of PROBEMS, a scholarship program in Mexico aimed at improving graduation rates and test scores among upper secondary school students from poor backgrounds. The identification strategy is the random allocation into the program, which took place in 2009. The strategy...

We investigate partial insurance and group risk sharing in extended family networks. Our approach is based on decomposing income shocks into group aggregate and idiosyncratic components, allowing us to measure the extent to which each is insured, having accounted for public insurance programs....

We study the socioeconomic gradient of child development on a sample of low- and middle-income children aged 6–42 months in Bogota using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. We find an average difference of 0.53, 0.42, and 0.49 standard deviations (SD) in cognition,...

Previous empirical literature has found a sharp decline in consumption during the first years of retirement, implying that individuals do not save enough for their retirement. This phenomenon is called the retirement consumption puzzle. We find no evidence of the retirement consumption puzzle...

This article outlines how a home visiting intervention in Colombia, delivered at scale through partnering with existing social welfare systems, successfully increased the variety of play materials and play activities in economically disadvantaged households with young children. The study shows...