In recent decades, the world has faced an increasing number of natural and man-made disasters. Such disasters include tsunamis, earthquakes, the current ongoing financial crisis, terrorism, riots, and wars. These disasters generate tremendous social and economic costs, especially for the poor in...

This paper uses a unique household data set collected in Vietnam to empirically test the necessary conditions for an extended version of the consumption risk-sharing hypothesis. The test explicitly incorporates self-production and uses natural disasters such as avian influenza, droughts, and...