In this chapter, we review the development of the insurance industry in China. We provide a comprehensive discussion of its regulatory framework, major insurance segments, market structure, InsurTech, social insurance and the prospects for the future development

Well-functioning markets allocate assets to owners that improve firms' management and performance. We study the effects of ownership changes on coffee mills in Rwanda - an industry in which managing relationships with farmers and seasonal workers is important and that has seen many ownership...

This paper investigates retirees' optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

The sharing economy for a wide range of goods and services is expanding across the world. To direct the benefits from sharing capital services towards small-scale producers, governments in the developing world are increasingly intervening in fast-growing mechanization rental markets. However,...

The novel insurance contracts for crop losses and livestock mortality that have been developed in low income countries typically protect against shocks in the male sphere of economic activity. Often overlooked are women, the particularities of their indirect exposure to this risk, and their...

Many countries subsidize agricultural inputs but require farmers to travel to retailers to access inputs, just as for normal purchases. What effect do travel costs have on subsidy take-up and input usage, particularly for remote farmers? We analyze Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), and...

Climate change increases weather variability, exacerbating agricultural risk in poor countries. Risk-averse farmers are unable to tailor their planting decisions to the coming season, and underinvest in profitable inputs. Accurate, long-range forecasts enable farmers to optimize for the season...

Persistence of sharecropping tenancy and increases in farm productivity following regulations protecting tenant rights have been observed in many developing countries. This paper examines if these can be explained by alternative models of sharecropping with two sided efforts/investments, namely,...

Land market incompleteness is argued to have pervasive effects in Sub-Saharan Africa, including on agricultural efficiency, equity, and structural transformation. Yet experimental evidence on land market participation is virtually non-existent. We randomly allocate subsidies for agricultural...