The curvature properties of the indirect utility function imply a set of refutable implications in the form of comparative static results and symmetric relations for the competitive firm operating under uncertainty. These hypotheses, first derived and empirically tested under output price...

The effective design and implementation of interventions that reduce vulnerability and poverty require a solid understanding of underlying poverty dynamics and associated behavioral responses. Stochastic and dynamic benefit streams can make it difficult for the poor to learn the value of such...

We make all decisions in the context of what we know and can envision. However, catastrophes often arise from what we had not known or had not envisioned previously. Approaches that work for addressing what can be envisioned are not useful in preventing catastrophic meltdowns arising from what...

Entrepreneurship means making discrete changes in livelihood activities that involve substantial risks to income. While the rewards may be substantial, transactions costs may make decisions irreversible. This paper draws a comparison between entrepreneurship and technology adoption. Adopting a...

Recent and presumable future developments tend to increase the risk associated with farming activities. This causes an increasing importance of risk management. Farmers have a wide variety of possibilities to influence the risk exposure of their operations. Among them are the choice of the...

Weather constitutes the major source for production risk in agriculture. Weather index can be used construct crop insurance that demand less information and can avoid moral hazard and adverse selection problems. Based on mean-variance model, theoretical results on the optimal insurance coverage...

The paper evaluates technical solutions and two main tapes of index-based insurance:area yield insurance and weather-based index insurance regarding theirefficiency in reducing climatic risks of Russian farms in the steppes zone. Theanalysis considers area yield insurance at two levels of...

We use the actual insurance records of 52,300 farmers and 11 years to estimate two sets of insurance demands. We define measures of insurance's expected returns, variance and third moment, based on observed insurance data, and infer the expected returns for those farmers that have never had an...

In West Africa, farm income is highly exposed to risks from crop failure in the drier, inland areas, and from fluctuations in (world market) prices in the wetter coastal areas. As individuals and even extended families are poorly equipped to deal with these, provision of social safety nets is...

To develop weather insurance, GROUPAMA builds a general model of agronomic crop yielddensity function. This approach is applied for cereal, industrial products, wine and fruits.From the density function, weather risk premium is computed. The wine-producing practicesdisturb our approach of risks....