In discussing the paradoxical violation of expected utility theory that now bears his name, Maurice Allais noted that individuals tend to “greatly value” payoffs that are certain. Allais' observation would seem to imply that people will undervalue insurance relative to the predictions of...

This paper examines whether agricultural insurance can boost investment by small scale farmers in West Africa. We conduct a randomized evaluation to analyze the impacts of index insurance for cotton farmers in Burkina Faso. We find no impact of insurance on cotton, but, consistent with...

Purpose – While behavioral economic experiments have uncovered a wealth of insights concerning how people decide in the face of risk and uncertainty, the implications of these insights for the demand for agricultural insurance are under-explored. The purpose of this paper is to report on...