Abstract
Seasonal variation in income and consequent food shortages are common in rural areas of many developing countries. While earlier studies have examined various coping strategies of the poor during seasonal shortages, little attention has been paid to the role of individual sharing behavior within rural communities in sustaining repetitive periods of scarcity.
In this paper I ask 1) if sharing behavior is stronger during the lean periods, and 2) if sharing in lean periods needs to be more strictly enforced, if at all or if it arises naturally. Further, 3) I examine a link between individual exposure to income fluctuations and sharing behavior.
I use simple economic games repeated within-subjects during good and lean periods with farmers in Marghzar and Amrakh regions of Balkh province, northern Afghanistan. The research aims to contribute to our understanding of the evolution and the sustaining of cooperation in human societies exposed to aggregate shocks.