This paper uses detailed, transactions-level data and a structural-heteroskedasticity-in-mean model to identify the determinants of livestock producer prices for pastoralists in the drylands of northern Kenya. The empirical results confirm the importance of animal characteristics, periodic...

This paper uses detailed, transactions-level data and an innovative, structural-heteroskedasticity-in-mean estimation method to identify the determinants of livestock producer prices for pastoralists in the drylands of northern Kenya. The empirical results confirm the importance of animal...

Temporal climate risk weighs heavily on many of the world's poor. Recent advances in model-based climate forecasting have expanded the range, timeliness and accuracy of forecasts available to decision-makers whose welfare depends on stochastic climate outcomes. There has consequently been...

Many prominent scientists avidly advocate bioprospecting, the systematic search for new commercial applications for biota, especially hitherto unstudied species, as a mechanism for inducing tropical biodiversity conservation by making it commercially attractive (Wilson; Reid et al., 1993; PAHO, 1996...

Estimating risk preferences is tricky because controlling for confounding factors is difficult. Omitting or imperfectly controlling for these factors can attribute too much observable behavior to risk aversion and bias estimated preferences. Agents often modify risky decisions in response to...

A growing literature on poverty traps emphasizes the links between multiple equilibria and risk avoidance. However, multiple equilibria may also foster risk taking behavior by some poor people. We illustrate this idea with a simple analytical model in which people with different wealth and...

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...