Earthquakes, floods, drought, and other natural hazards cause tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and billions of dollars in economic losses each year around the world. Many billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance, emergency loans, and development aid are...

Index insurance, such as weather indexing, addresses other inherent problems in insurance by using an indicator that is not affected by individual behavior and may address monitoring costs and moral hazard. A number of innovations using index insurance are being tried currently in diverse...

Health care expenditures can be financed through a mix of public resources and private spending. Private spending is a much larger share of total health spending in low- and middle-income countries than in higher income countries. Moreover, a significant percentage of private spending in those...