This review examines portions of the vast literature on rural financial markets and household behavior in the face of risk and uncertainty. We place particular emphasis on studying the important role of financial intermediaries, competition and regulation in shaping the changing structure and...

The shift to a market-oriented credit and financial policy was expected to spur rural financing by the private sector that would help usher growth in the agriculture and rural areas. However, the rural areas have continued to suffer from the lack of access to financial services of banks. Despite...

On the basis of portfolio selection theory, this paper finds that whole-farm risk must be regarded as a major reason for the low level of credit flow to agriculture in North-western Kazakhstan. A quadratic programming model was used in order (a) to demonstrate the comparatively high overall risk...

In the face of seasonal climate variability, the smallholder farmers, particularly those in rural communities, are among the most adversely affected. As a way to address this, together with concern on low productivity, the Philippine government has been implementing a range of risk management...

Crop insurance is a risk management tool designed to even out agricultural risks and address the consequences of natural disasters to make losses more bearable, especially to the marginalized farmers. In the Philippines, the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) implements and manages the...

This paper has re-examined the role of Land Bank of the Philippines, a government-owned bank, in light of the recent reforms and developments in the Philippine financial markets. It recommends that the Land Bank should shed off its commercial and investment functions, which can very well be done...

This paper attempted to test whether efficient cooperative rural banks (CRBs) have a better control of their agency costs. We used two different concepts of efficiency, namely, cost efficiency and alternative profit efficiency, and found somewhat different results from both approaches. Using...