Farmers' Willingness to Purchase Weather Insurance in Rural China
Farmers' Willingness to Purchase Weather Insurance in Rural China

Author: Calum G. Turvey

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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China frequently suffers from weather related natural disasters and is a source of wide-spread systemic risk throughout large swaths of China. During these periods farmers crops are at risk and for a largely poor population few can afford the turmoil to livelihoods that goes along with drought. Throughout the developing world there is serious interest in index-based weather insurance for agriculture, and in China the China Insurance Regulatory Commission is investigating the insurability of weather related risk. Beyond that little formal research has appeared on either the demand, use or design of index insurance in China. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of farmers' willingness to pay for drought insurance. Based on a survey of over 890 farm households in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces the results show that while there is significant demand, price may be an issue. Our results show that the majority of farm households would transition from a no-demand state to a demand state as prices fall. This suggests that in order to gain wide gain adoption there may be a need for governmental intervention.

Subjective and Objective Risk Perceptions and the Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Insurance
Subjective and Objective Risk Perceptions and the Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Insurance

Author: Yinuo An

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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We conducted in-the-field choice experiments in China to investigate farmers' willingness to pay for crop insurance and to determine how objective and subjective beliefs affect Willingness to Pay (WTP). We deploy three variants of the choice experiment using a priming mechanism on objective and subjective beliefs plus a control. We find that the cuing frame matters in that there are distinct differences in WTP within five attributes and across variants. In terms of policy practicality our results suggest that farmers' frame of reference can affect insurance demand. We then examine whether WTP choices were determined by affective choice, dual processes and/or expected utility. In a follow-on survey we asked farmers to state minimum, typical or most likely, and maximum yields from history (objective risks) and the next-harvest future (subjective risks). These were used to construct objective and subjective probability distributions for each respondent farmers using the beta-PERT distribution. The first approach interacts choices with mean, standard deviation, and skewness about a generalized Taylor's series expansion about utility. The second interacts the certainty equivalents drawn from a logarithmic utility function. The third involves a scoring function based on the subjective-objective spread of PERT cumulative distribution functions. Results were mixed. We find that the direct expected utility approach was unsatisfactory because of over-fitting. However, with strong multicollinearity between primal choices and the certainty equivalent measures we conclude evidence of a utility -centric dual process model. However, when the dual-process analytical component was based on the cumulative distribution scoring rule, the dual process hypothesis is weakened considerably.

Three Essays on Farmers' Crop Insurance Choices
Three Essays on Farmers' Crop Insurance Choices

Author: Ran Huo

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation includes three essays investigating smallholder farmers' demand for crop insurance in China using data from a series of economic surveys and experiments with 477 vegetable farmers in China. The first essay focuses on farmers' preferences for crop insurance under alterative frames and coverage level. The empirical findings, when viewed through the lens of expected utility theory, reveal three anomalies. First, we find that farmers tend to place less value on a risk-reducing contract framed in the context of crop insurance compared to an otherwise equivalent contract not framed as insurance. Second, farmers place a relatively higher value on low coverage contracts compared to high coverage contracts. Third, farmers who are more risk averse or loss averse are found to be less willing to purchase crop insurance with a high coverage level. Building upon these findings, the second essay reconciles these anomalous findings within a prospect theory framework under narrow framing. Recognizing that farmers in rural areas of developing countries may have less experience with crop insurance and less trust in the institutions managing crop insurance suggests that farmers may tend to view crop insurance as an innovative technology rather than a risk-transferring tool. Empirical tests indicate support for this conjecture. We find that farmers' decisions in the surveys and experiments correspond with theoretical predictions under prospect theory for an agent who evaluates a crop insurance purchase deception independently from their crop revenue. Focusing on the challenge for farmers to evaluate crop insurance policies and estimate the actuarially fair premium underlying a policy, the third essay develops a probabilistic model incorporating biased estimates of the actuarially fair premium in order to explain economically suboptimal take-up of crop insurance by smallholder farmers. Evidence from the probabilistic model employing data from the economic surveys and experiments partially explains the anomalous decisions found in the first essay. Critically, we find that farmer's risk aversion, average propensity to consume, and other key sociodemographic variables have explanatory power for farmers' willingness to pay for a crop insurance contract and farmers' estimate of the actuarially fair premium for a crop insurance contract.

Insurance Demand Over Varying Coverage Levels
Insurance Demand Over Varying Coverage Levels

Author: Ran Huo

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Low demand for crop insurance, even when subsidized at highly favorable rates, remains a challenge for policymakers in developing countries attempting to create insurance-based farm safety nets. Evidence from a series of surveys and experiments with 477 vegetable farmers in China reveals several anomalies in farmers' demand for crop insurance as well as deviations from predictions under both expected utility theory and cumulative prospect theory. Farmers are willing to pay higher price for neutral-frame risk protection tool than for an insurance-frame equivalent. Moreover, they tend to be more likely to purchase low-coverage than high-coverage insurance, even when high coverage provides greater subsidized value. Among risk- and loss-averse farmers, who theoretically should be more interested in adopting risk protection tools, we find less willingness to purchase high-coverage level insurance.

Government Support to Agricultural Insurance
Government Support to Agricultural Insurance

Author: Olivier Mahul

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2010-03-08

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0821382195

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Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. In their attempts to design and implement agricultural insurance, they have sought technical and financial assistance from the international community and particularly from the World Bank. One of the recurrent requests from governments regards international experience with agricultural insurance, not only in developed countries, where in some cases agricultural insurance has been offered for more than a century, but also in middleand low-income countries. Governments are particularly interested in the technical, operational, financial, and institutional aspects of public support to agricultural insurance. 'Government Support to Agricultural Insurance' informs public and private decision makers involved in agricultural insurance about recent developments, with a particular focus on middle- and low-income countries. It presents an updated picture of the spectrum of institutional frameworks and experiences with agricultural insurance, ranging from countries in which the public sector provides no support to those in which governments heavily subsidize agricultural insurance. This analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank s agricultural insurance team in 2008 in 65 developed and developing countries. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.

Climate Change Adaptation and International Development
Climate Change Adaptation and International Development

Author: Ryo Fujikura

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-07-26

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1136540334

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Climate change impacts upon the world's poorest most heavily. It is therefore essential that international development initiatives focus on improving the ability of developing countries to adapt to the effects of climate change. This book, a product of research by the JICA-RI (Research Institute of the Japan International Cooperation Agency), examines climate change adaptation from the perspective of development cooperation in order to provide useful lessons for those engaged in research, policy and practice in this vital area. In this book the editors have brought together a wide range of case studies from across Africa and Asia, covering urban and rural areas and different sectors including water, agriculture and disaster management, in order to examine the following: o high-resolution climate change projection in Asia and how this can be used in planning appropriate adaptation responses o in-depth case studies of climate change projections, social, economic and environmental impact and vulnerability assessment and adaptation in rural Thailand and urban Philippines o cases across Africa for which climate data is less readily available and alternative approaches need to be adopted o the current situation amongst international donors o emerging issues caused by climate change In the introductory section, the editors draw together the full implications from the case studies to discuss how international communities can support adaptation in developing countries and to give an assessment of bilateral projects. They reflect on the lessons learned and offer recommendations for future research and international development cooperation.

Making Environmental Markets Work
Making Environmental Markets Work

Author: Tabitha M. Benney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-11-27

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 131761481X

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Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the global economy today is the rise of emerging market economies (EMEs). Many states have experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades that has led to an increasing share of global wealth. Such dramatic changes are highly relevant because they raise important issues about the distribution of global monetary and fiscal power. As the EMEs have gained importance in the global economy, their influence and significance have grown across a wide range of policy domains. One particularly relevant example is the increasingly critical role of EMEs in addressing climate change. Contrary to the popular belief that the level of development determines a country’s ability to produce positive environmental outcomes, this book shows that the variation in environmental outcomes among the EMEs is due to differences in the types of economic institutions prevalent in their economies. Since EMEs differ dramatically on a number of variables, examining national variations in economic institutions helps explain why international climate policy has been more successful in some countries than in others. To assess how variations in capitalism may influence important outcomes, this book explores a representative sample of 31 EMEs and employs a mixed method research design that incorporates both conventional regression analysis and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to explain these outcomes. The analysis shows that although liberal market economies were expected to perform better than other types of capitalism, their performance fell below expectations. On the contrary, economic institutions related to coordinated types of capitalism (like those found in China and Brazil) have led to greater Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market participation. Theoretically informed, this book employs innovative ways of understanding a broad set of increasingly important but under studied states in an effort to highlight the interactions found in complex socio-political and ecological systems. With the growing importance of the EMEs, a better understanding of how to design market-based policies with them in mind will be required if future efforts across a range of policy issues are to be meaningful and effective.

Farming Systems and Poverty
Farming Systems and Poverty

Author: John A. Dixon

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9789251046272

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A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.

Modern Management based on Big Data I
Modern Management based on Big Data I

Author: A.J. Tallón-Ballesteros

Publisher: IOS Press

Published: 2020-11-17

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1643681214

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The management of any modern organisation involves data, but the volume of information has become almost impossible for even the most up-to-date computer system to handle. Fortunately, big-data technologies are now enabling new ways of dealing with the flood of information, making an approximate solution possible in a reasonable time-frame, as an alternative to waiting for an exact result taking much longer. This book contains the 17 papers presented at the inaugural conference of the new series: Modern Management based on Big Data (MMBD 2020). The conference was originally scheduled to be held in Beijing, China, but due to measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was held online from 18-21 October 2020. As its name suggests, the conference covers the connected aspects of Big Data and Modern Management, and the 17 papers included here, accepted from a total of 68 submissions, cover topics including data capture and storage; search, sharing and analytics; data visualization; machine learning algorithms for big data; distributed file systems and databases; management strategy and decision making; manufacturing and logistics systems; total quality management; management information systems; human factor engineering; and human resources. Providing an overview of current developments in modern management based on Big Data, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.