The present dissertation is twofold and takes up several issues in two separate and independent articles. In chapter II, the hedging effectiveness of weather index-based insurance with regard to aggregation biases in the underlying risk exposure of aggregated yield time series is presented. The...

The first paper of this dissertation in Chapter II, “Insurance for Technology Adoption: An Experimental Evaluation of Schemes and Subsidies with Maize Farmers in Mexico”, analyzes experimentally how bundling the purchase of a risky technology, namely a higher yielding maize seed variety,...

In the past decades, a great interest has emerged in understanding the nature of people’s well-being beyond consumption opportunities. It is widely believed that happiness research based on self-reports on people’s satisfaction with life has made a significant contribution to this...

To date, studies dealing with the impact assessment of changing irrigation policies predominately rely on normative rational choice models that are subject to rather restrictive assumptions such as profit-maximizing behavior. However, there is increasing evidence that decision makers pursue...

Replaced with revised version of paper 5/26/11.

Weather derivatives are difficult to price due to the nontradability of weather and the absence of liquid secondary markets for these contracts. We use the concept of indifference pricing to develop a model for calculating the willingness to pay for weather insurance. Compared with other...