This paper provides a theoretical analysis for the optimal portfolio of weather index and individual crop insurance in farm level under mean-variance framework and stresses the impacts of risk aversion level, transaction cost, and basis risk. An empirical application of corn farms in Todd county...

Replaced by updated/revised version. This is an electronic version of a journal article, please cite as: Collier, B., A.L. Katchova, and J. Skees. “Loan Portfolio Performance and El Nino, an Intervention Analysis.” Agricultural Finance Review 71(2011):98-119.

This paper presents a methodology for adding longer series of weather data to short series on Yield data for the purpose of Improving knowledge about crop Yield risk Findings demonstrate that the weather during the past 33 years provide Yield forecast with significantly less risk than the past...

U.S. farmers have for years relied on the financial support of both federally funded crop insurance and direct disaster assistance. Limits on availability of federal funds dictate that programs less costly to the government than disaster programs but more effective than past crop insurance...

A new crop insurance alternative will be available for eight major crops in 1994. This paper provides background on the development and potential for the new Group Risk Plan (GRP). The policy issues surrounding the Federal Crop Insurance Program are reviewed with an emphasis on the microlevel...

Uncertain reservoir inflows represent a major source of risk for irrigated agriculture. A derivative instrument that uses reservoir inflows as the underlying variable is designed and tested with a recursive stochastic simulation of the Rio Mayo irrigations system. The results indicate that the...

One of the key factors affecting the crop output is the rainfall volume. For this reason, insurance plans based on the rainfall deviation of the mean have been advanced. This paper provides prospects of rainfall-indexed insurance in Romania considering the tradeoff between moral hazard and basis...

Prototype inflow-based derivative contracts are designed to hedge irrigation risk in the Rio Mayo Valley of Sonora, Mexico. The results indicate that an 18-month contract is feasible given the specific characteristics of the region selected for the study.

Developing new risk management products for all agricultural commodities has increased in importance given recent legislation. Vegetables have been difficult to insure. This paper investigates the use of index contracts for growers belonging to a Kentucky vegetable cooperative. Index contracts...

Recent legislation has cleared the way for subsidized livestock price insurance. Such programs could increase production. Expected feeder cattle prices with and without subsidized insurance will be analyzed using E-V and Stochastic Dominance. Results will highlight the potential effects of the...