High losses generated by natural catastrophes reduce the availability of insurance. Among the ways to manage risk, the subscriptions of participating and non-participating contracts respectively permit to implement the two major principles in risk allocation: the mutuality and the transfer...

Volatility of farm income represents a major challenge for farm management and the design of public policies. This paper measures the extent to which risk management tools, especially direct payments and crop insurance, can significantly reduce crop income volatility in France and in Italy. We...

Using data for 2002-2005 on a representative survey of French farms (FADN-RICA), we investigate the different factors that lead farmers to insure against crop risk. Our analysis takes into account a mix of both standard individual, financial and agricultural criteria. Cross-sectional and...

Using data for 2002-2005 on a representative survey of French farms (FADN-RICA), we investigate the different factors that lead farmers to insure against crop risk. Our analysis takes into account a mix of both standard individual, financial and agricultural criteria. Cross-sectional and...

Currently there is ample discussion among EU Institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, and Member States’ governments) on the possibility of setting up a comprehen sive EU-wide framework on risk and crises in agriculture. With the changes introduced in the proposed...

This paper analyzed the impact of farm and farmer characteristics on the acceptability to dairy farmers in the Netherlands of an all-risk insurance package and underlying specific categories of insurance coverage. The major farm characteristics considered were structural, operational and...

Recent and presumable future developments tend to increase the risks associated with farming activities. These include climate risks which have always played an important role in farming. Weather based instruments can be valuable tools to reduce the risk associate with unfavourable climatic...

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...

Replaced with revised version of paper 11/18/08.

Basis risk has been cited as a primary concern for implementing weather hedges. This study investigates several dimensions of weather basis risk for the U.S. corn market at various levels of aggregation. The results suggest that while the degree of geographic basis risk may be significant in...