This study examines the actuarial implications of the loss cost ratio (LCR) ratemakingmethodology employed by the Risk Management Agency as a component of base ratesfor U.S. crop insurance programs, and identifies specific conditions required for the LCRmethodology to result in unbiased rates...

This study develops a multi-crop insurance model which is employed to evaluate crop insurance decisions when several crops are produced jointly. The results suggest that the diversification effects derived from producing multiple crops can substantially alter the risk reduction impacts of crop...

This study examines the actuarial implications of the loss cost ratio (LCR) ratemaking methodology employed by the Risk Management Agency as a component of base rates for U.S. crop insurance programs, and identifies specific conditions required for the LCR methodology to result in unbiased rates...

This study evaluates the impacts on gross revenue distributions of the use of alternative crop insurance products across different coverage levels and across locations with differing yield risks. Results are presented in terms of net costs, values-at-risk, and certainty equivalent returns...

Considerable disagreement exists about the most appropriate characterization of farm-level yield distributions. Yet, the economic importance of alternate yield distribution specifications on insurance valuation, product designs and farm-level risk management has not been investigated or...

This research examines risk-return tradeoffs across a full range of crop insurance products and coverage levels. Results indicate that farm-level products reduce risk for low probability events, but that risk reductions often are not large for events that occur with more regularity. Risk...

An important issue in the agricultural actuarial literature is the extent to which sample period selection affects the accuracy of insurance rating. A conditional Weibull distribution approach is developed which explicitly models the interaction of weather, technology, and other variables...

Basis risk has been cited as a primary concern for implementing weather hedges. This studyinvestigates several dimensions of weather basis risk for the U.S. corn market at variouslevels of aggregation. The results suggest that while the degree of geographic basis risk maybe significant in some...

In this study stylized gasoline blender’s optimal hedging strategy in the presence of ethanol mandates is analyzed. In particular, the main objective of this study is to investigate whether the ability to purchase RINs and the presence of tax incentives would affect blenders’ optimal hedging...