Uncertainty in economics is generated by 'nature' but also by the model we use to 'produce the future'. The production of the future comprises besides the allocation of resources on different instruments (technologies, financial products) also the design of the instruments. Specialization and...

This paper interprets Knight’s views of the firm from the standpoint of his theory of human agency. Focusing on the coordination perspective, this paper argues that Knightian firms are institutions which deal with intersubjective uncertainty. The fundamental principle underlying an organized...

European farmers face increasing income uncertainty and the debate is growing on the role of insurance schemes and of public support in this field. This debate is further stimulated by the perspective of introducing instruments to cope with risk also in the Common Agricultural Policy. Therefore,...

The paper considers the benefit to agricultural producers from commodity price insurance that provides in every year, but in advance of the resolution of production and price uncertainty, a minimum price for a fixed or variable portion of production. Under the assumption that producers do not...

Insuring against crop yield risk is an important task in rural microfinance because such an insurance may improve access to capital for smallholders by substituting for collaterals. However, agricultural crop yield risk is even hard to mitigate in developed countries due to problems of...

In this paper we price a precipitation option based on empirical weather data from Germany using different pricing methods, among them Burn Analysis, Index Value Simulation and Daily Simulation. For that purpose we develop a daily precipitation model. Moreover, a decorrelation analysis is...

Recent academic discussion regarding crop insurance in developing and transition countries has focused on weather index insurance. But empirical analyses of such schemes based on farm level data cannot be found in the literature, though this insurance type shows clear advantages compared to...

Index-based weather insurances are innovative tools for mitigating weather risks in agriculture.Several donor agencies and development organisations are investing substantially topropagate these programmes in developing countries. However, often due to high basis risks,these products mitigate...

This paper investigates the determinants of rapeseed hail insurance and pesticide use decisions using individualpanel data set of French farms covering the period from 1993 to 2004. Economic theory suggests that insuranceand prevention decisions are not independent due to risk reduction and/or...

We analyze determinants of hail insurance use of Swiss farmers, covering the period 1990-2009 usingFADN panel data. Mixed effect logistic regression models are estimated to identify the most importantfarm and farmer characteristics that determine insurance use. In addition, information on local...