I compare the risk attitudes of a large, representative sample of farmers to representative samples of the general population and of non-farm small business owners using a robust survey measure of risk tolerance. I find no difference between farmers and the general population in average risk...

We consider a political economy where government cares about risk-averse farmers’ loss of income and yet incurs political cost if it provides monetary support to farmers. Government evaluates three options: 1) ex-post disaster aid; 2) ex-ante insurance option with perfect information; 3)...

Despite the presumed importance of a strong state in the development process, there has been very little empirical work assessing the state’s ability to exercise power in isolated areas and understanding the means through which the state exerts that power. This paper begins to fill this gap in...

This paper studies the ability of the political process to design public policies implying an eective and ecient provision of global and local environmental public goods. While it is commonly accepted that the market is unable to guarantee an ecient provision of public goods, such as...