Rural households contend with numerous uninsured risks that hinder their ability to leverage profitable yet risky opportunities. We study whether the provision of insurance coverage for medical expenditure, one of the most substantial and unpredictable risk, can stimulate entrepreneurship and other risky financial decisions among rural households. We leverage the progressive nationwide rollout of a universal public health insurance program in rural China. We find that the introduction of health insurance led to a substantial increase in rural households engagement in entrepreneurship. This increase is mainly driven by the risk sharing of health insurance, rather than a reduction in realized medical expenses. The entrepreneurship-promoting effect is also evident at an aggregate level, fostering the growth of smallholder businesses in rural counties. Our findings shed light on the understudied, favorable impact of health insurance on household’s risk taking in rural markets of developing countries.
This book analyzes the wealth management of mid-high net worth individuals and families. As China's economy develops and people's living standards improve, more and more families are becoming well-off and the middle-income group continues to expand. After creating wealth and becoming rich, better guarding, spreading and enjoying wealth is not only an urgent challenge faced by more and more micro-families, but also an inevitable need to enrich and energize people's livelihood and the connotation of a good life.
Mid-high net worth people are an organic part of China's middle-income group, as well as the future coordinates of many families that have just crossed into the middle-income group. An accurate portrait of this group and an in-depth study of the needs, habits, ways and effects of their family wealth management and distribution are conducive to better responding to the demands of affluent families to "keep, pass on and enjoy wealth," as well as exploring the path of solidly promoting common prosperity at the micro-family level.
From this perspective, Institute of Social Science Survey of Peking University has conducted a panoramic analysis on mid-high net worth people from panel survey with more 16,000 households in China after 10 years of tracking and investigation, from six aspects: behavioral patterns, financial asset allocation, non-financial asset allocation, commercial insurance allocation, children's commercial medical insurance allocation and pension insurance allocation, the importance of which is self-evident. As the first systematic work on asset allocation and insurance protection of Chinese middle and high net worth families, although part of the purpose is to explore the demand for insurance protection and develop the commercial insurance market, there is no doubt that this study is an important reference for the government to formulate social security policies and for financial institutions to optimize the supply of family wealth services.