Weather risk and incomplete insurance markets are significant contributors to poverty for rural households in developing countries. Weather index insurance has emerged as a possible tool for overcoming these challenges. This paper provides evidence on the impact of weather index insurance from a...

Climate change has considerably increased the likelihood of experiencing extreme weather events. Governments in developing countries have a limited capacity to smooth the losses created by extreme weather, and could potentially benefit from the introduction of disaster funds, that is, ex-ante...

Considerations of risk and vulnerability are key to understanding the dynamics of poverty in rural Malawi. This study measures vulnerability to consumption shortfalls and analyzes its sources using a two-period panel of 2,789 households, drawn from the 2010 Third Integrated Household Survey and...

It has long been recognized that household decision-making may not result in outcomes consistent with the unitary household model. Within the collective bargaining framework, consumption decisions would be driven by the spouse with greater bargaining power, while the outcomes would still be...

Across the developing world, public goods exert significant impacts on the local rural economy in general and agricultural productivity and welfare outcomes in particular. Economic and social-cultural heterogeneity have, however, long been documented as detrimental to collective capacity to...

Uninsured natural disasters can have devastating effects on human welfare and economic growth, particularly in developing countries where large segments of the population are in poverty and government resources and capacity to assist in relief, recovery, and reconstruction are limited. Therefore...

This paper examines historically the World Bank's twin features: lending to developing economies to achieve tangible results and advocating specific development policies. Section 1 provides some conceptual underpinnings for the view that an effective state is essential for development. It asks...