Using participating and financial contracts to insure catastrophe risk: Implications for crop risk management

This paper proposes a combination of participating and financial contracts in order to hedge catastrophic risk. Assuming unfair policies and the existence of a basis risk, we prove the optimal coverage is realized using: first, a participating contract, which covers the idiosyncratic part of the risk under a variable premium; second, a financial contract, which hedges the systemic part of the risk under a fixed premium. The necessary intermediation of insurance companies in the conception of such contracts is emphasized as well as the impact of unfair premia. From then, potential implications for crop risk management are examined.

The main determinants of insurance purchase. An empirical study on crop insurance policies in France

Using data for 2002-2005 on a representative survey of French farms (FADN-RICA), we investigate the different factors that lead farmers to insure against crop risk. Our analysis takes into account a mix of both standard individual, financial and agricultural criteria. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses as well as logistic regressions underline the main differences between insured and non-insured farms. Compared to non-insured farms, we find that insured farms present greater financial and agricultural sizes, a more diversified production and have been motivated by the occurrence of recent catastrophic climatic events. Although essential in the cross-sectional analysis, the influence of financial parameters in the decision to insure is mitigated. On the other hand, the agricultural characteristics of the farms confirm their leading influence for the subscription of crop insurance policies.

The Main Determinants of Insurance Purchase: An Empirical Study on Crop Insurance Policies in France

Using data for 2002-2005 on a representative survey of French farms (FADN-RICA), we investigate the different factors that lead farmers to insure against crop risk. Our analysis takes into account a mix of both standard individual, financial and agricultural criteria. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses as well as logistic regressions underline the main differences between insured and non-insured farms. Compared to non-insured farms, we find that insured farms present greater financial and agricultural sizes, a more diversified production and have been motivated by the occurrence of recent catastrophic climatic events. Although essential in the cross-sectional analysis, the influence of financial parameters in the decision to insure is mitigated. On the other hand, the agricultural characteristics of the farms confirm their leading influence for the subscription of crop insurance policies.Insurance, Demand, Crop insurance, Catastrophe risk, Risk and Uncertainty,

Valuing lagoons using a meta-analytical approach: Methodological and practical issues

Among coastal areas, lagoons are probably one of the most active and sensitive areas. They provide numerous goods and services that are of value to people. As public goods, there are freely accessible but in counterpart there are more endangered than other areas. Conflict uses between activities inside and outside the lagoons or between occasional and regular users imply to implement the lagoons economic values in order to provide a useful management tool. Many studies have been driven in order to estimate the impacts of the different activities on water quality and the willingness to pay for a better environment. We collect 32 lagoon studies providing 67 value observations in order to present a comprehensive meta-analysis of the valuation literature. This method allows estimating a function that takes into account the sites characteristics, methodological variables and lagoons services. The estimation of a meta-analytic function proves that all theses kinds of variables are important for the calculus of values. Moreover, we precisely determine the influence of the different variables on the value. Performing the transfer, we find an average transfer error amount equal to 87% but a median transfer error equal to 24%. This result due to a very small number of aberrant values is interesting with one-fourth of the transfers showing errors lower to 10% and nearly three-fourth of the transfers present errors lower to 50%.

Explaining the Varieties of Volunteering in Europe: A Capability Approach

Volunteer rates vary greatly across Europe despite the voluntary sector’s common history and tradition. This contribution advances a theoretical explanation for the variation in volunteering across Europe - the capability approach - and tests this approach by adopting a two-step strategy for modeling contextual effects. This approach, referring to the concept of capability introduced by Sen (Choice, welfare and measurement, Oxford University Press, 1980/1982), is based on the claim that the demand and supply sides of the voluntary sector can be expected to vary according to collective and individual capabilities to engage in volunteering. To empirically test the approach, the study relied on two data sources - the 2015 European Union (EU) Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), including an ad hoc module on volunteering at the individual level, and the Quality of Government Institute and PEW Research Center macro-level data sets - to operationalize economic, human, political, social, and religious contextual factors and assess their effects on individuals' capability to volunteer. The results support the capability hypothesis at both levels. At the individual level, indicators of human, economic, and social resources have a positive effect on the likelihood of volunteering. At the contextual level, macro-structural indicators of economic, political, social, and religious contexts affect individuals’ ability to transform resources into functioning - that is, volunteering

Determinants of Voluntary Organizations’ Attention on Facebook: The Case of Norwegian Voluntary Organizations

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Organizaciones voluntarias y democracia. Bases teóricas

This report advance a socio-economic theory of the voluntary organisation aiming at conceiving this organisational form in its complexity and at analysing it from both the viewpoints of its economical and political (democratic) dimensions. Three questions are purpose: to what extend democratic organisations contribute to social democracy? What are the conditions for democratic functioning at the societal level? Is there a link between internal democracy (within voluntary organisations) and societal democracy? We claim analyze also, in theoretical terms, the consequence of an increasing function fill by the market and by the State in the democratic operation of voluntary organizations, independently of the field in which they operate, these organizations must make face with a tendency to commercialisation, in the direction where a growing proportion of voluntary organisations incomes is derived from the sale of services in a competitive market.Democracy, voluntary organisations, commercialisation, rationalisation.

Stabilité ou instabilité des stratégies commerciales ? Le cas des circuits courts dans l'agriculture française

Les circuits courts sont désormais un mode de commercialisation reconnu dans l'agriculture française et adopté largement par certains secteurs. Cet article s'inscrit dans le corpus croissant des études sur les circuits courts en proposant une étude de la dynamique de l'adoption de la vente au détail. Il s'appuie sur la base de données du RICA pour les années 2006 à 2012 et considère des exploitations présentes en continu sur cette période. Des statistiques descriptives sont complétées par un modèle de sélection en deux étapes d'Heckman qui considère la vente au détail et sa durée d'adoption comme variables expliquées. Les résultats confirment le lien entre niveau de formation de l'exploitant, utilisation de main-d'œuvre, usage des produits phytosanitaires et adoption des circuits courts de commercialisation. Ils mettent en évidence la relation entre la réduction de main-d'œuvre et des produits phytosanitaires, l'établissement d'une situation financière saine, ainsi que des particularités sectorielles dans la durée d'adoption de la vente au détail. En contribuant à une connaissance plus approfondie des modes de commercialisation en vente directe, ces résultats traduisent l'émergence d'un modèle spécifique d'exploitations centré autour de l'utilisation des circuits courts