今年冬天来得超快。据说charles river上这个周末还在举办国际夏季划艇节（2007年北大清华都来了），这个划艇节似乎是每年在夏季的尾巴（或称秋天吧）举行。但今年已经入冬了！！！！
冬天偷袭。。。兵来将挡，雪来照掩。。掏出前年雪照（2007年12月）凑数。哪天有空再去拍几张新的。
http://picasaweb.google.com/Lunarye/SnowHarvard#

若干月前，看到邹恒甫博客上（很久没去了）说，北大光华应用经济系系主任蔡红斌带领考察团考察某省某地母猪生产。邹老着实挖苦了一番。我当时想，蔡老师要做什么政府项目的话，也不用找这么low profile的，肯定是跟一定的研究相关。今天收到NBER的digest,的确蔡老师他们又做了一个实验（上次在餐厅做了一个实验，发到AER了；但这个母猪实验显然政策含义更强一点）。处处是经济学，处处是微观经济学。母猪生产只不过是一个framing而已。Hongbin Cai, Yuyu Chen, Hanming Fang, Li-An Zhou，4架马车还是可以做出一些很不错的有意义的应用微观研究来的。

自己的杂想：现实中跟insurance相关的非实验的另一种情况：公司+农户模式。 firm一般被认为比individual更加风险中性一些（在合同理论中往往假设firm是风险中性），那么公司+农户模式是否的确（在一定程度上）起到了insurance的作用？

http://papers.nber.org/papers/W15396

Microinsurance, Trust and Economic Development: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment
by Hongbin Cai, Yuyu Chen, Hanming Fang, Li-An Zhou  -  #15396 (PE)

Abstract:

We report results from a large randomized natural field experiment conducted in southwestern China in the context of insurance for sows.
 Our study sheds light on two important questions about microinsurance.  First, how does access to formal insurance affect
farmers' production decisions? Second, what explains the low takeup rate of formal insurance, despite substantial premium subsidy from
the government? We find that providing access to formal insurancesignificantly increases farmers' tendency to raise sows.  We argue
that this finding also suggests that farmers are not previously insured efficiently through informal mechanisms.  We also provide
several pieces of evidence suggesting that trust, or lack thereof, for government-sponsored insurance products is a significant barrier
for farmers' willingness to participate in the insurance program.