Unpredictable rainfall is an important risk for agricultural activity, and farmers in developing countries often receive incomplete insurance from informal risk-sharing networks. The demand for, and effects of, offering formal index-based rainfall insurance is studied through a randomized...

This paper proposes a unifying theory of forecasting in the form of a Golden Rule of Forecasting. The Golden Rule is to be conservative. A conservative forecast is consistent with cumulative knowledge about the present and the past. To be conservative, forecasters must seek all knowledge...

This note takes a first look at the distribution of returns to education for people with disabilities, a particularly disadvantaged group whose labor market performances have not been well studied or documented. Using a nonparametric approach, we uncover significant heterogeneity in the returns...

This note takes a first look at the distribution of returns to education for people with disabilities, a particularly disadvantaged group whose labor market performances have not been well studied or documented. Using a nonparametric approach, we uncover significant heterogeneity in the returns...

This paper looks into the role the tax-benefit system plays in mitigating the effects of widespread socio-economic risks in the context of individualization, welfare state transformation and recent austerity. We analyse the drivers behind the changing role of the risk-mitigating social policies...

This paper presents a methodology for comparing income rank volatility profiles over time and across distributions. While most of the existing measures are affected by changes in marginal distributions, this paper proposes a framework that is based on individuals' relative positions in the...

We examine supply-side determinants of transition from the wage and salary sector to self-employment of women and men living Poland. The empirical analysis is made possible due to a unique and under explored longitudinal survey -- Social Diagnosis – that contains rare indicators such as job...

Income mobility is often thought to equalize permanent incomes and thereby to improve social welfare. The welfare analysis of mobility often fails, however, to account for the cost of the variability of periodic incomes around permanent incomes. This paper assesses the net welfare benefit of...