Households as Corporate Firms

Krislert Samphantharak is an Assistant Professor and the Charles Robins Faculty Scholar in the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is also an affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He received his doctoral degree in economics from the University of Chicago. In addition to his research on household finance, other research interests include family business groups, unpredictable corruption and firm investment, firm's lobby spending and its effective tax rate, effect of sales tax on gasoline prices, and economic development of the economies in Southeast Asia. Robert M. Townsend is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He previously was the Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he remains a Research Professor. His contributions to economic theory include the revelation principle, costly state verification, optimal multiperiod contracts, decentralization with private information, money with spatially separated agents, financial structure and growth, and forecasting the forecasts of others. His contributions to econometrics include the study of risk and insurance in developing countries. His work on village India was awarded the Frisch Medal in 1998.

• Part I. Households as Corporate Firms: 1. Introduction; 2. Conceptual framework; Part II. Household Financial Accounting: 3. Household surveys; 4. Constructing household financial statements from a household survey; Part III. Household Finance: 5. Financial analysis; 6. An application: liquidity constraints, kinship networks, and the financing of household investment; 7. Discussion: measurement and modeling.

'This is path-breaking work. This monograph lays out the data needed for high-quality empirical work and gives concrete examples of how it can be done. This work and methodology should and will become extremely influential.' Orazio Attanasio, University College London