IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/ifprid/1021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Crop price indemnified loans for farmers

Author

Listed:
  • Karlan, Dean
  • Kutsoati, Ed
  • McMillan, Margaret
  • Udry, Chris

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Karlan, Dean & Kutsoati, Ed & McMillan, Margaret & Udry, Chris, 2010. "Crop price indemnified loans for farmers," IFPRI discussion papers 1021, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
  • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01021.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Varangis, Panos & Larson, Don, 1996. "Dealing with commodity price uncertainty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1667, The World Bank.
    2. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    3. Gin, Xavier & Yang, Dean, 2009. "Insurance, credit, and technology adoption: Field experimental evidencefrom Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 1-11, May.
    4. GlennW. Harrison & StevenJ. Humphrey & Arjan Verschoor, 2010. "Choice under Uncertainty: Evidence from Ethiopia, India and Uganda," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 80-104, March.
    5. Stephen R. Boucher & Michael R. Carter & Catherine Guirkinger, 2008. "Risk Rationing and Wealth Effects in Credit Markets: Theory and Implications for Agricultural Development," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(2), pages 409-423.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Dean Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2010. "What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 263-306.
    7. C. W. Morgan & A. J. Rayner & C. Vaillant, 1999. "Agricultural futures markets in LDCs: a policy response to price volatility?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 893-910.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shawn Cole & Xavier Gine & Jeremy Tobacman & Petia Topalova & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2013. "Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 104-135, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Brauw, Alan & Eozenou, Patrick, 2014. "Measuring risk attitudes among Mozambican farmers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 61-74.
    2. Ruth Hill & Angelino Viceisza, 2012. "A field experiment on the impact of weather shocks and insurance on risky investment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(2), pages 341-371, June.
    3. Richard A. Gallenstein & Jon Einar Flatnes & John P. Dougherty & Abdoul G. Sam & Khushbu Mishra, 2021. "The impact of index‐insured loans on credit market participation and risk‐taking," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(1), pages 141-156, January.
    4. Galarza, Francisco, 2009. "Risk, Credit, and Insurance in Peru: Field Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 17833, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    6. B Kelsey Jack, "undated". "Market Inefficiencies and the Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 50, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Bocqueho, Geraldine & Jacquet, Florence & Reynaud, Arnaud, 2011. "Expected Utility or Prospect Theory Maximizers? Results from a Structural Model based on Field-experiment Data," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114257, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Aparicio, Gabriela & Bobic, Vida & De Olloqui, Fernando & Carmen, María & Diez, María Carmen Fernández & Gerardino, Maria Paula & Mitnik, Oscar A. & Macedo, Sebastian Vargas, 2021. "Liquidity or Capital? The Impacts of Easing Credit Constraints in Rural Mexico," IZA Discussion Papers 14477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Shawn Cole & Xavier Gine & Jeremy Tobacman & Petia Topalova & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2013. "Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 104-135, January.
    10. Shukri Ahmed & Craig McIntosh & Alexandros Sarris, 2020. "The Impact of Commercial Rainfall Index Insurance: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1154-1176, August.
    11. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    12. de Janvry, Alain & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2020. "Using agriculture for development: Supply- and demand-side approaches," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Naranjo, María A. & Pieters, Janneke & Alpízar, Francisco, 2019. "Credit, insurance and farmers’ liability: Evidence from a lab in the field experiment with coffee farmers in Costa Rica," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 12-27.
    14. Galarza, Francisco B. & Carter, Michael R., 2010. "Risk Preferences and Demand for Insurance in Peru: A Field Experiment," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61871, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. G�nther Fink & Margaret McConnell & Sebastian Vollmer, 2014. "Testing for heterogeneous treatment effects in experimental data: false discovery risks and correction procedures," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 44-57, January.
    16. Peters, Jörg & Langbein, Jörg & Roberts, Gareth, 2016. "Policy evaluation, randomized controlled trials, and external validity—A systematic review," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 51-54.
    17. Andersen, Steffen & Harrison, Glenn W. & Lau, Morten Igel & Rutström, Elisabet E., 2010. "Behavioral econometrics for psychologists," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 553-576, August.
    18. Dougherty, John P. & Flatnes, Jon Einar & Gallenstein, Richard A. & Miranda, Mario J. & Sam, Abdoul G., 2020. "Climate change and index insurance demand: Evidence from a framed field experiment in Tanzania," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 155-184.
    19. Christoph Breunig & Steffen Huck & Tobias Schmidt & Georg Weizsäcker, 2021. "The Standard Portfolio Choice Problem in Germany," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(638), pages 2413-2446.
    20. C. W. Morgan, 2001. "Commodity futures markets in LDCs: a review and prospects," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 1(2), pages 139-150, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    agricultural credit; clustered randomized control trial; crop price insurance; crop prices; Impact evaluation; underinvestment;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1021. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.