Project Details
Projekt
The role of financial institutions in absorbing shocks and reducing vulnerability: Evidence for households and small enterprises in rural Thailand and Vietnam
Subject Area
Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
Term
from 2006 to 2014
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 23753993
Financial institutions can play a very useful role in dealing with risks that lead to poverty. To investigate the role of financial institutions as a component of market-based social risk management in emerging economies, there is a need to conduct a broad survey-based study that addresses three issues: households financial decision making, risk factors of households and finally - based on these two modules - financial strategies to deal with vulnerability to poverty. The contribution of this project is fourfold: (1) go beyond most impact analyses of financial deepening by focusing on the most elementary problem of rural people, i.e. vulnerability to poverty; (2) aim for a complete picture of financial relationships by explicitly including the situation of informal and formal institutions, which both play an important role (even more so in Thailand); (3) analyze the risk situation of households by allowing for a subjective risk perception as advised by recent behavioral economics and by considering complements and substitutes for financial risk diversification; and (4) extend earlier approaches to a strictly comparable two-country study) in order to better identify generally relevant and institution-specific factors. This project is a step in building up a most useful panel data set, which will help to better grasp the time and causality dimensions.
DFG Programme
Research Units
