This paper asks whether gift exchange generates externalities for people outside of the bilateral relationship between the gift giver and recipient, and whether the nature of this relationship is affected by social networks. We examine this question in the context of a field experiment in urban...

This paper investigates the crowding-out effect of formal insurance on informal risk-sharing arrangements via theory and laboratory experiment. Our model and simulation predict that the crowding out of private transfers is often more than one-for-one and will reduce the total risk coverage....