Measurement of reciprocity in a village through social networks

ABSTRACTThis paper examines measuring of interdependency among households through their transactions by using information of individual villagers in a disadvantaged area in a developing country. To obtain the information, we created a village input–output table (VIOT) from household survey data conducted in a rural village in Lao PDR in 2015 and 2016. Because each household in the village is not only a producer but also a consumer who is trading products and consuming them, the VIOT is a simple but useful tool to know the economic transactions among villagers. The main findings are that four higher-income families, which mainly trade rice very frequently, are playing key roles in the village economy, and the interdependency among higher-income households is stronger than among lower/middle-income households. Additionally, this method can be used to form an economic policy such as poverty reduction because of informing households playing a key role in the village.