17Wheneebthe economy is never constrained, households’ decisions are not affected by thesize of the shocke: if hit by a negative endowment shock, households can borrow from banksto smooth consumption. In contrast, when the maximum size of the shock is above its threshold(eb=0:095), consumers take into account that there is a positive probability that the constraintwill bind in period 1. They insure by reducing borrowing in period 0 (so that their net worth nextperiod will be higher) and by reducing their consumption in period 1. The probability of a cri-sis (p) is positive and increases in a non-linear way with the maximum size of the shock to theendowment.The intuition for the comparative statics in Figure 2 is the following. The Lagrangian multiplier(l) in the Euler equation (6) represents the shadow value of the collateral constraint. When theshock to the endowment is not large enough to push the economy in the constrained region,l=0and the economy achieves its efficient allocation (as we are not explicitly considering here otherdistortions). In contrast, when the maximum size of the shock (e) is large enough,lmay be pos-itive and increasing ine. Therefore, the largere, the larger island the level of precautionarysavings undertaken by consumers