@article{Skoufias:16424,
      recid = {16424},
      author = {Skoufias, Emmanuel and Quisumbing, Agnes R.},
      title = {CONSUMPTION INSURANCE AND VULNERABILITY TO POVERTY: A  SYNTHESIS OF THE EVIDENCE FROM BANGLADESH, ETHIOPIA, MALI,  MEXICO, AND RUSSIA},
      address = {2003},
      number = {583-2016-39529},
      series = {FCND Discussion Paper 155},
      pages = {41},
      year = {2003},
      abstract = {This paper synthesizes the results of five studies using  household panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mali,  Mexico and Russia, which examine the extent to which  households are able through formal and/or informal  arrangements to insure their consumption from specific  economic shocks and fluctuations in their real income.  Building on the recent literature of consumption smoothing  and risk sharing, the degree of consumption insurance is  defined by the degree to which the growth rate of household  consumption covaries with the growth rate of household  income. All the cases studies show that food consumption is  better insured than nonfood consumption from idiosyncratic  shocks. Adjustments in nonfood consumption appear to act as  a mechanism for partially insuring ex-post the consumption  of food from the effects of income changes. Food  consumption is also more likely to be covered by informal  insurance arrangements at the community level than nonfood  consumption. Linkages among consumption variability, the  level than nonfood consumption, the incidence of poverty,  and the probability of being ever poor and the proportion  of time spent in poverty are also explored for Bangladesh,  Ethiopia, and Russia. All the case studies also show that  households use a portfolio of risk-coping strategies, but  that different types of households may have differential  ability to use these strategies. In particular, poorer  households may be less able to use mechanisms that rely to  initial wealth as collateral. In this regard, pubic  transfer programs may have a more redistributive effect.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/16424},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.16424},
}