This study identifies adoption determinants of selected cleaner technologies used in bleached kraft pulp production, with emphasis on incentives for voluntary environmental management. A double-hurdle model consistent with the theory of irreversible investment under uncertainty outperformed a...

U.S. Department of Agriculture's Dairy Options Pilot Program promoted hedging by producers, and was a test case for similar programs in other agricultural industries. Rapidly shifting milk pricing policies impeded quantitative hedging evaluations while the program was active. Hedging appears...

Levels of conjugated linoleic acid, which may help prevent cancer, can be elevated in milk. A sensory evaluation, willingness-to-pay survey, and feasibility analysis suggest that profit potential exists for producers serving niche markets via small-scale processing ventures. Households with...

This study examines Japanese retail price reactions to the 2001 bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) discovery, the 2000 outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD), and the 1996 E. coli food poisoning events. Historical decomposition of retail-level price series aids in explaining the behavior...

Purpose – This paper illustrates that natural disasters can significantly threaten financial institutions serving the poor. The authors test the case of a microfinance institution (MFI) in Northern Peru, where severe El Niño events create catastrophic flooding. Design/methodology/approach –...

While significant progress in microcredit and microfinance has been made in low‐income countries, lending for small farming enterprises has been limited. This article reviews how innovative index‐based risk‐transfer products (IBRTPs) can be used to transfer the correlated natural disaster...

This article considers the potential for securitizing index‐based insurance products that transfer weather and natural disaster risks from lower income countries. It begins with a brief overview explaining why markets for natural disaster risks are important, yet often missing, in lower income...

This article offers some perspective on the progress and challenges of managing catastrophic weather risk in lower income countries through the use of index insurance. Innovations in insurance for natural disaster risk are critically important to help the rural poor improve their lives and to...