A recurring theme in development economics is that risk affects individual production, consumption, exchange, and investment behaviors in ways that ultimately shape income and wealth distributions. Arrow's Decreasing Absolute Risk Aversion conjecture implies that the poor prefer low return, low...

This paper breaks new ground in the literature on bioprospecting by evaluating the local welfare effects associated with the successful bioprospecting-driven commercialization of argan oil in southwestern Morocco. The principal finding is that even when locals appear well-positioned to reap the...

Temporal climate risk weighs heavily on many of the world's poor. Model-based climate forecasts could benefit such populations, provided recipients use forecast information to update climate expectations. We test whether pastoralists in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya update their...

Market-based approaches to biodiversity conservation gained popularity in the 1990s. The success of these strategies hinges on, first, the successful creation or expansion of target markets and, second, the beneficial involvement of local stakeholders in these markets so that improved incentives...

Ecotourism, bioprospecting and non-timber product marketing have been promoted recently as market-based instruments for environment protection, but without sound understanding of the resulting net conservation effects. We present evidence on the local conservation effects of recent argan oil...

Temporal climate risk weighs heavily on many of the world's poor. Model based climate forecasts could benefit such populations, provided recipients use forecast information to update climate expectations. We test whether pastoralists in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya update their...

Ecotourism, bioprospecting and non-timber product marketing have been promoted recently as market-based instruments for environment protection, but without sound understanding of the resulting net conservation effects. We present evidence on the local conservation effects of recent argan oil...