英文文献：Moral Hazard, Risks and Index Insurance in the Rural Credit Market: A Framed Field Experiment in China-农村信贷市场的道德风险、风险与指数保险:一个框架式的田间实验
英文文献作者：Cheng, Lan
英文文献摘要：
Abstract This paper studies the interaction between index insurance market and the rural credit market by investigating how the availability of index insurance affects borrowers' moral hazard behavior. Among different types of moral hazard problem in the credit market, we focuses on credit diversion, which occurs when borrowers violate loan contracts and use some or all of production loans for consumption purpose. We build a theoretical model to show that credit non-diverters are likely to benefit from and purchase index insurance, while credit diverters are not. For credit non-diverters, index insurance provides consumption smoothing and increases future income by preventing loan default. For credit diverters who are already implicitly insured by diverting credit from risky investments to consumption, index insurance increases their consumption risks and can even lower expected consumption level. The fundamental reason for the difference of the impact between credit diverters and non-diverters is that index insurance pays indemnities based on external indices rather than farmers' realized outcome. Therefore, the availability of index insurance encourages farmers to choose full investment of loans instead of credit diversion. To test these theoretical predictions empirically, we conducted a framed field experiment with 450 rural households in the north region of China. Coinciding with theoretical predictions, experimental results show that index insurance reduces the number of credit diverters by 75.8%. The treatment effect on credit diversion is heterogeneous across farmers depending on their risk preferences and ethical costs associated with violating loan contracts. The theoretical and empirical results have important policy implications for stimulating credit supply to agriculture and reducing credit rationing. They suggest that lenders can use index insurance as a signaling instrument to overcome information asymmetry in the credit market. Index insurance can be substituted for collateral requirements and lessen both quantity and risk rationing caused by collateral requirement.

本文通过考察指数保险的可得性如何影响借款人的道德风险行为，研究了指数保险市场与农村信贷市场的相互作用。在信贷市场的不同类型的道德风险问题中，我们关注的是借款人违反贷款合同，将部分或全部生产贷款用于消费的信贷转移问题。我们建立了一个理论模型，表明信用不偏离者有可能从指数保险中受益并购买指数保险，而信用偏离者则没有。对信贷不分流者来说，指数保险通过防止贷款违约来平滑消费并增加未来收入。对于那些通过将信贷从风险投资转向消费而获得隐性保险的信贷分流者，指数保险增加了他们的消费风险，甚至降低了他们的预期消费水平。信贷转移者与非转移者之间影响差异的根本原因在于，指数保险基于外部指标而非农户的实现结果进行赔付。因此，指数保险的可用性鼓励农民选择贷款的全额投资，而不是信贷的转移。为了对这些理论预测进行实证检验，我们对中国北方地区450户农户进行了框式田间试验。与理论预测相一致的是，实验结果表明，指数保险减少了75.8%的信贷偏离者。根据农民的风险偏好和违反贷款合同相关的道德成本，信贷转移的处理效果在农民中是异质的。理论和实证结果对刺激农业信贷供给、减少信贷配给具有重要的政策意义。他们建议，贷款人可以使用指数保险作为信号工具，以克服信贷市场的信息不对称。指数保险可以替代担保要求，减少由担保要求引起的数量配给和风险配给。