Recently, Weather Index Insurance (WII) has received considerable attention as a tool to insure farmers against weather related risks, particularly in developing countries. Donor organizations, local governments, insurance companies, development economists as well as agricultural economists are...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of easing credit constraints for rural producers in Mexico through loans provided by a national public development finance institution (DFI). In contrast to most of the existing literature, the study focuses on the effect of medium-sized loans over a two-...

Do constraints to technology adoption vary by behavioral traits? We randomize 150 villages in Bangladesh into being offered standard microcredit, loans with a grace period, the choice between those two contracts, and control. No discernible average effects are detected on the adoption of...

Investment in improved agricultural inputs is infrequent for smallholder farmers in Africa. One barrier may be limited access to formal savings. This is the first study to use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of using mobile money as a tool to promote agricultural investment....

We present cross-country evidence suggesting that agricultural credits have a positive impact on agricultural productivity. In particular, we find that doubling agricultural credits generates around 4-5 percent increase in agricultural productivity. We use two different agricultural production...

Trust is crucial for successful collective action. A prime example is collective commercialization of agricultural produce through producer organizations. We conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Senegal in which we vary the number and the type of smallholder farmers - members...

Agricultural credit is one of the most crucial inputs in all agricultural development programmes. Access of rural credit has still remained scarce in India. Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) working at grass-root level, having direct contact with the rural people and meet their...

Information and communication technology plays an important role in achieving a higher level of energy efficiency. In particular, energy efficiency can be achieved by integrating information technology into electricity networks to enable the interaction between suppliers and customers (smart...

Most support programs targeted at small firms in low- and middle-income countries fail to generate transformative effects at a large scale due to bad targeting, too little flexibility, and the limited size of the support, among others. This paper assesses the short-term effects of a randomized...