This paper investigates the farm-household decisions of adopting and abandoning higher-productivity technologies, under different scenarios of inclusion into the credit and deposit markets. The financial environment is further characterized by shallow financial markets, represented by a...

According to USDA Economic Research Service 11.1 percent of all US households were food insecure during some period during 2006. That percentage of food insecure households increased to 14.5 in 2010. In the interim, the country experienced a severe economic recession likely contributing to the...

Groundnuts are an important crop for Ugandan smallholders since they are high in protein, resupply nutrients to the soil, and are a storable source of wealth once dried. Adoption of improved, virus-resistant seed should have a positive impact on household food security, as yields are expected to...

Abstract This paper studies the interaction between index insurance market and the rural credit market by investigating how the availability of index insurance affects borrowers' moral hazard behavior. Among different types of moral hazard problem in the credit market, we focuses on credit...

Producers’ increased reliance on crop insurance has led to concerns about losses producers could incur that are not covered by crop insurance. In the current farm bill debate, several proposals that would be based on area (county) revenue and are intended to cover a portion of producers’...

Although there is an increasing interest in index-based insurances in many developing countries, crop data scarcity hinders its implementation by forcing insurers to charge higher premiums. Expert knowledge has been considered a valuable information source to augment limited data in insurance...

Lack of protection from downside risk has been posited as one explanation for sluggish technology uptake among subsistence agricultural households in the developing world. Access to credit and insurance is thought to be a stimulant to technology adoption where new methods are riskier but higher...