We use newly-available Indian panel data to estimate how the returns to planting-stage investments vary by rainfall realizations. We show that the forecasts significantly affect farmer investment decisions and that these responses account for a substantial fraction of the inter-annual...

This paper studies sustainability of economic growth considering the risk of natural disasters caused by pollution in an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital accumulation. It is shown that economic growth is sustainable only if the tax rate on the polluting input is increased...

We look at the effects of rainfall forecasts and realized rainfall on equilibrium agricultural wages over the course of the agricultural production cycle. We show theoretically that a forecast of good weather can lower wages in the planting stage, by lowering ex ante out-migration, and can...

Rural elderly have 40% of the income of those in urban areas, spend a larger share of their income on food, are in worse health, work later into their lives, and depend more on their children, lacking pensions and public services. The birth quota since 1980 has particularly restricted the...

Low adoption of productive agricultural technologies is a puzzle. Agricultural extension services rely on external agents to communicate with farmers, although social networks are known to be the most credible source of information about new technologies. We conduct a large-scale field...

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The investment decisions of small-scale farmers in developing countries are conditioned by their financial environment. Binding credit market constraints and incomplete insurance can reduce investment in activities with high expected profits. We conducted several experiments in northern Ghana in...

We estimate the general-equilibrium labor market effects of a large-scale randomized intervention in which we designed and marketed a rainfall index insurance product across three states in India. Marketing agricultural insurance to both cultivators and to agricultural wage laborers allows us to...

We present a model to explain why natural resource windfalls tend not only to lead to slower economic growth but to generate and reinforce authoritarian tendencies in Third World political regimes. In the model, the political elite's power over the populace is derived both from its own wealth...

Biodiversity has become economically important. Most general biologists focus on diversity across species, and within-species classification is given little attention by taxonomists. But to agriculturalists the latter is vital, because plant and animal breeding depends on within-species...