ABSTRACT We use the three-waves panel data for households in rural Nigeria from the General Household Surveys (GHS), which is part of the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), to investigate how informal associations help households that are exposed to adverse shocks in smoothing their food consumption. We find that informal associations help to improve the percentage of food expenditure and dietary diversity of households who are members compared to those non-member households. Moreover, we investigate potential mechanisms through which these relationships hold, and we find that households are able to borrow from both the association and other individuals who may be members of similar networks. Our results are robust to different specifications.

中文翻译：

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非正式协会，冲击和家庭粮食消费：尼日利亚农村的面板数据估计

摘要我们使用一般家庭调查（GHS）中尼日利亚农村家庭的三波面板数据（这是世界银行生活水平衡量研究–农业综合调查（LSMS-ISA）的一部分）来调查非正式协会如何帮助遭受不利冲击的家庭减少食物消耗。我们发现，与非成员家庭相比，非正式协会有助于提高成员家庭食物支出的百分比和饮食多样性。此外，我们研究了建立这些关系的潜在机制，并且发现家庭可以从协会和可能是相似网络成员的其他个人那里借钱。我们的结果对于不同的规格是可靠的。