题目：Gift-giving and Risk Sharing: A Theory of Signaling and Evidence from Rural China

主讲人：王睿新

时间：2017年4月28日13:30-15:00

地点：暨南大学中惠楼106B会议室

主办方：暨南大学经济与社会研究院

主讲人简介：

王睿新博士，现任香港浸会大学商学院研究助理教授，先后获大连理工大学经济学学士 (2008年)，香港科技大学经济学硕士 (2009年)，荷兰蒂尔堡大学经济学博士（2015年)。在加入香港浸会大学前，王睿新博士曾在国际食物政策研究所（IFPRI）短期访问（2014年)。王睿新博士主要研究领域为发展经济学与公共经济学，主要研究兴趣集中于决定经济发展的（非正式）制度和政策因素。王睿新博士关于风险分担和礼金竞赛的论文曾获得第一届中国劳动经济学者论坛年会（2016）最佳论文奖。

Abstract:

This paper studies how gift exchange may help to overcome limited commitment problem in risk sharing. When efficient contract enforcement is lacking, people rely on friends (or relatives) to share risk since emotional or moral cost of defaulting between friends can help to prevent moral hazard. The problem is how to distinguish between friends and non-friends? Gift expense serves as a signal of friendship since giving a gift is less costly for a friend than a non-friend due to altruism. The model re-evaluates the role of gift exchange in developing economies, and helps to rationalize the large amount of gift exchange in China (10% of living expenditure). As a signal, gift exchange improves the efficiency in risk sharing and facilitates favor exchange, but I also demonstrate that the welfare gains due to this improvement may be offset by increased inequality. By using a unique data set containing detailed records about gift exchange in rural China, the empirical study suggests gift expenses, as a signal, significantly increase the probability of risk sharing. I also show further empirical evidence to the theory by testing more model predictions.