Using 40 years of historical rainfall data, this paper estimates a distribution for payouts on rainfall insurance policies offered to farmers in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India, in 2006. The authors find that the contracts primarily protect households against extreme tail events; half the...

This paper describes the contract design and institutional features of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India, and presents preliminary evidence on the determinants of insurance participation. Insurance takeup is found to be decreasing in basis risk...

The third in new series of impact notes highlights an example of where randomized experiments have been used to help understand the impact of a new insurance product first developed by Commodity Risk Management Group (CRMG) at the World Bank and various public and private partners in several...

The authors present a randomized field experiment measuring the direct impact and social network spillovers of providing financial literacy and discount vouchers on farmers decision to purchase index-based drought insurance. To examine this, the authors form clusters by grouping together...

Take-up of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India decreases with basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, increases with household wealth, and decreases with binding credit constraints. These results are consistent with the...

Take-up of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India decreases with basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, increases with household wealth, and decreases with binding credit constraints. These results are consistent with the...