Crop price indemnified loans for farmers

Farmers face a particular set of risks that complicate the decision to borrow. We use a randomized experiment to investigate (1) the role of crop-price risk in reducing demand for credit among famers and (2) how risk mitigation changes farmers’ investment decisions. In rural Ghana, we offer farmers loans with an indemnity component that forgives 50 percent of the loan if crop prices drop below a threshold price. A control group is offered a standard loan product at the same interest rate. We find similar rates of loan uptake among all farmers and little significant impact of the indemnity component on uptake or other outcomes of interest, with the exception of higher likelihoods of garden egg cultivation and sales to market traders rather than at farmgate among recipients of indemnified loans.agricultural credit, clustered randomized control trial, crop price insurance, crop prices, Impact evaluation, underinvestment,

Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions

We study uniform price auctions using a dataset which includes individual bidders' demand schedules in Finnish Treasury auctions during the period 1992-99. Average underpricing amounts to .041% of face value. Theory suggests that underpricing may result from monopsonistic market power. We develop and test robust implications from this theory and ¯nd that it has little support in the data. For example, bidders' individual demand functions do not respond to increased competition in the manner predicted by the theory. We also present evidence that the Finnish Treasury acts strategically, taking into account the fact that the auctions are part of a repeated game between the Treasury and the primary dealers. Empirically, the main driver behind bidder behavior and underpricing is the volatility of bond returns. Since there is no evidence that bidders are risk averse, this suggests that private information and the winner's curse may play an important role in these auctions.Multiunit auctions, uniform price auctions, treasury auctions, market power, demand functions, underpricing, supply uncertainty, seller behavior

Do Fishermen Have Different Attitudes Toward Risk? An Application of Prospect Theory to the Study of Vietnamese Fishermen

Field experiment and household survey data are combined to investigate whether working in a risky occupation such as fishing makes fishermen have different risk preferences than individuals in other occupations. Prospect theory is utilized as the main analytical framework and a structural model approach is developed to simultaneously correlate the parameters of the utility function under prospect theory with other socioeconomic variables. The key finding is that working in fishing makes economic agents less risk averse than others. Fishermen also tend to be less sensitive to probability weighting changes in the experiment. It is possible that fishermen have adapted to their unique environment by using specific heuristics for decision making under conditions of uncertainty.experimental economics, prospect theory, risk behavior, Vietnamese fishermen, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Online Auctions

The economic literature on online auctions is rapidly growing because of the enormous amount of freely available field data. Moreover, numerous innovations in auction-design features on platforms such as eBay have created excellent research opportunities. In this article, we survey the theoretical, empirical, and experimental research on bidder strategies (including the timing of bids and winner's-curse effects) and seller strategies (including reserve-price policies and the use of buy-now options) in online auctions, as well as some of the literature dealing with online-auction design (including stopping rules and multi-object pricing rules).

Customizable Area Whole Farm Insurance (CAWFI)

The customizable area whole farm insurance (CAWFI) was designed and compared with no insurance program and currently available whole farm insurance based on farm level yield (CFWFI). The CAWFI yields higher certainty equivalents over no insurance program, but lower to CFWFI; CAWFI has fairly small indemnity compared with CFWFI.Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

Contracts, Biases and Consumption of Access Services

We consider a consumption model that takes into account the valuation and demand uncertainties that consumers face while using access services. Typical examples of such services include telecommunication services, extended warranties for consumer electronics, and club memberships. We demonstrate that consumption is affected by contract structure (pay-peruse vs. three part tariffs) even if the optimal consumption plans are identical. We find that a majority of individuals correctly use a threshold policy that is similar to a nearly optimal heuristic, however they use the free units too quickly leading to overconsumption and lost surplus. These errors are partially driven by mistaken beliefs about the value distribution. We also measure subjectsâ willingness to pay for a contract with free access units, and we find that nearly half of subjects are willing to pay at least the full per-unit price, with a substantial fraction willing to overpay. The optimal firm strategy is therefore to offer a contract that presells access units at a very small discount; this strategy increases revenue by 8 − 15% compared to only offering a pay-per-use contract.access services, pricing contracts, decision biases, experiment

Linking marketing choices with farming practices of grain producers: A farm level modeling approach applied to the South-west of France

With the increasing commodity prices volatility over the last years and the successive agricultural policy reforms, European grain producers face greater uncertainty. To better understand consequences of a price risk increase on production decisions, marketing decisions and farm revenue as well as linkage between production and marketing decisions, we develop a multiperiodic risk farm model. Production decisions concern selections of crop mix and farming practices (conventional or integrated farming) while marketing decisions focus on four types of pricing arrangements. The model is applied to a representative farmer of a region located in the Southwest of France. The results exposed in this paper shows that with a price risk increase, production adjustments of a risk averse farmer are oriented toward less risky (environmentally friendly) farming practices unless marketing contracts allow to mitigate price risk.multiperiod farm model, marketing contracts, risk, common agricultural policy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management,

Does Family Control Affect Trade Performance? Evidence for Italian Firms

This paper examines whether the export decision of firms is affected by their ownership structure, specifically it looks at whether family control is an obstacle to entering foreign markets. The underlying assumption is that family firms are risk averse. Risk aversion may be an obstacle to entering foreign markets, as far as these are perceived as more volatile and risky than the domestic one, particularly when such choice entices bearing relatively high sunk costs. We develop an illustrative theoretical model that shows how the combination between high risk aversion and low initial productivity may hinder family firms’ decision to enter foreign markets, particularly distant ones. The empirical analysis, based on a detailed panel data set of Italian firms covering the years from 1995 to 2003, confirms such predictions by showing that family controlled firms do indeed export less than other type of companies even after controlling for firm heterogeneity in productivity, size, technology and access to credit.

Does Family Control Affect Trade Performance? Evidence for Italian Firms

This paper examines whether the export decision of firms is affected by their ownership structure, specifically it looks at whether family control is an obstacle to entering foreign markets. The underlying assumption is that family firms are risk averse. Risk aversion may be an obstacle to entering foreign markets, as far as these are perceived as more volatile and risky than the domestic one, particularly when such choice entices bearing relatively high sunk costs. We develop an illustrative theoretical model that shows how the combination between high risk aversion and low initial productivity may hinder family firms' decision to enter foreign markets, particularly distant ones. The empirical analysis, based on a detailed panel data set of Italian firms covering the years from 1995 to 2003, confirms such predictions by showing that family controlled firms do indeed export less than other type of companies even after controlling for firm heterogeneity in productivity, size, technology and access to credit.firm structure, foreign markets, family firms, exports