This paper is based on our ongoing joint work with Ravi Kanbur. Xi Chen is grateful to Ravi Kanbur for invaluable comments, guidance and encouragement. For comments and suggestions, please direct correspondence to Xi Chen at xc49@cornell.edu.

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/28/11. Former title: Indirect Effects of Microfinance: A Field Experiment on Formal Savings Expansion and Informal Safety Nets of the Ultra-Poor

Informal credit markets are very active in many developing countries including China. Informal financial associations have become a major channel of borrowing. Using data from the 2006 Rural Household Survey, this paper investigates farmers’ borrowings from both formal and informal sources...

Human capital has been identified as significant determinant of farm size growth. However, there are numerous measures for human capital. Traditional measures include age, experience, and education of the principal operator and a management measure. This study identifies three types of...

We theoretically examine a farmer’s coverage demand with area and individual insurance plans as either separate or integrated options. The individual and area losses are assumed to be imperfectly and positively correlated. With actuarially fair rates, the farmer will fully insure with the...

Exogenous, unobserved factors often confound the effects of alliance networks. More capable farmers might be less likely to exit and more likely to have a large number of alliances. In this case the negative correlation between alliance network size and exit likelihood is due to the unobserved...

We examine the extent to which economic development reduces both a country's disaster risk and its social vulnerability to climate-related disasters. Global climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and various types...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/24/11.

We formulate a method to determine an equitable division of dairy farm partnership income when partners provide unequal amounts of capital, labor, and management and empirically estimate this relationship. New York dairy farm financial data are used within fixed effects and random coefficient...

Replaced with revised version of paper 5/26/11.