Weather index insurance underwrites a weather risk, typically highly correlated with agricultural production losses, as a proxy for economic loss and is gaining popularity in lower income countries. This instrument, although subject to basis risk and high start-up costs, should reduce costs over...

This paper considers the potential for securitizing index-based insurance products that transfer weather and natural disaster risks from lower income countries. The paper begins with a brief overview of why markets for natural disaster risks are important in lower income countries and a review...

Markets for transferring catastrophic risk in agriculture are woefully lacking in developing countries. Even in developed countries, markets for transferring the risk of crop losses caused by natural hazards generally exist only with large government subsidies. However, such subsidies can be...

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...

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 risks...

Summary A growing literature suggests that in low-income countries, households with few assets can be trapped in chronic poverty. This article reviews relevant threads of the poverty traps literature to motivate a description of the opportunities presented by innovative index-based risk transfer...

A specification search process is used to examine whether or not there are significant crop and region specific differences in factors that explain Federal Crop Insurance Program participation. Estimates of the price elasticity of demand for federal crop insurance are of particular importance.

This article documents the design and rate-making procedures used in the development of the Group Risk Plan (GRP)—the new federal crop insurance product that insures based on area yield. The authors of this article worked closely with personnel in the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and...

This article compares risk reduction from MPCI and GRP crop insurance contracts. The analysis extends and improves on the existing area-yield insurance literature in four important respects. First, the geographical scope greatly exceeds that of previous work. Second, unlike previous efforts, the...

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine international experience with multiple-peril crop insurance (MPCI). Named peril crop insurance is available in most countries but MPCI is less common. While named peril insurance is widely successful, MPCI has a checkered history. In most cases,...