"Goodwin and Mahul identify the key issues and concerns that arise in the design and rating of crop yield insurance plans, with a particular emphasis on production risk modeling. The authors show how the availability of data shapes the insurance scheme and the ratemaking procedures. Relying on...

The Pacific Region is one of the most natural disaster prone regions on earth. The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are highly exposed to the adverse effects of climate change and natural hazards, which can result in disasters affecting their entire economic, human, and physical environment and...

The Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion 2012 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Inclusion Index (Global Findex) database providing country-level indicators on the use of formal bank accounts, payments behavior, savings patterns, credit patterns, and insurance decisions. It provides...

"The objective of this paper is to address the main considerations for China of including financial services in its preferential trade agreements. The paper briefly reviews China's financial liberalization process and the state of its domestic financial system, discusses the main considerations...

"The authors look at the depth of the financial sector in Bogota in terms of the "financial exclusion" of those, particularly poorer citizens, who operate without accounts in formal financial institutions-the unbanked. They begin with a review of the overall decline in financial intermediation...

"This paper reviews the evidence on the importance of finance for economic well-being, provides data on the degree of use of basic financial services by households and firms across a sample of countries, assesses the desirability of more universal access, and overviews the macroeconomic, legal,...