IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/4426.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Statistical analysis of rainfall insurance payouts in southern India

Author

Listed:
  • Gine, Xavier
  • Townsend, Robert
  • Vickery, James

Abstract

Using 40 years of historical rainfall data, this paper estimates a distribution for payouts on rainfall insurance policies offered to farmers in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India, in 2006. The authors find that the contracts primarily protect households against extreme tail events; half the expected value of indemnities paid by the insurance are generated by only 2 percent of rainfall realizations. Contract payouts are significantly correlatedcross-sectionally, and also inversely associated with real GDP growth. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for the potential benefits of insurance to households, the risks facing a financial institution underwriting rainfall insurance contracts, and pricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Gine, Xavier & Townsend, Robert & Vickery, James, 2007. "Statistical analysis of rainfall insurance payouts in southern India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4426, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4426
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/12/04/000158349_20071204100152/Rendered/PDF/wps4426.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    2. Kenneth A. Froot, 1999. "The Financing of Catastrophe Risk," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number froo99-1, March.
    3. Hanan G. Jacoby & Emmanuel Skoufias, 1998. "Testing Theories of Consumption Behavior Using Information on Aggregate Shocks: Income Seasonality and Rainfall in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(1), pages 1-14.
    4. Froot, Kenneth A. (ed.), 1999. "The Financing of Catastrophe Risk," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226266237, December.
    5. Xavier Giné & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2008. "Patterns of Rainfall Insurance Participation in Rural India," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(3), pages 539-566, October.
    6. Eric Zitzewitz, 2006. "How Widespread Was Late Trading in Mutual Funds?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 284-289, May.
    7. Froot, Kenneth A. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1998. "Risk management, capital budgeting, and capital structure policy for financial institutions: an integrated approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 55-82, January.
    8. Paxson, Christina H, 1992. "Using Weather Variability to Estimate the Response of Savings to Transitory Income in Thailand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 15-33, March.
    9. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    10. World Bank, 2005. "Managing Agricultural Production Risk : Innovations in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 14434, The World Bank Group.
    11. Zanjani, George, 2002. "Pricing and capital allocation in catastrophe insurance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 283-305, August.
    12. World Bank, 2005. "Managing Agricultural Production Risk : Innovations in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 8797, The World Bank Group.
    13. Barry J. Barnett & Olivier Mahul, 2007. "Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture and Rural Areas in Lower-Income Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1241-1247.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Shawn Cole & Xavier Giné & James Vickery, 2017. "How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(6), pages 1935-1970.
    2. Kenneth A. Froot, 2007. "Risk Management, Capital Budgeting, and Capital Structure Policy for Insurers and Reinsurers," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 273-299, June.
    3. Gine, Xavier & Menand, Lev & Townsend, Robert & Vickery, James, 2010. "Microinsurance : a case study of the Indian rainfall index insurance market," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5459, The World Bank.
    4. Ashimwe, Olive, 2016. "An Economic Analysis Of Impact Of Weather Index-Based Crop Insurance On Household Income In Huye District Of Rwanda," Research Theses 265675, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    5. 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.
    6. Mobarak, A. Mushfiq & Rosenzweig, Mark R., 2012. "Selling formal Insurance to the Informally Insured," Center Discussion Papers 121671, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    7. Antoine Leblois & Philippe Quirion, 2013. "Agricultural insurances based on meteorological indices: realizations, methods and research challenges," Post-Print hal-00656778, HAL.
    8. Ishita Sen, 2023. "Regulatory Limits to Risk Management," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(6), pages 2175-2223.
    9. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    10. Ashimwe, Olive, 2016. "An Economic Analysis Of Impact Of Weather Index-Based Crop Insurance On Household Income In Huye District Of Rwanda," Research Theses 276460, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    11. Yasuyuki SAWADA & Fauziah ZEN, 2014. "Disaster Management in ASEAN," Working Papers DP-2014-03, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    12. Jin, Ling & Chen, Kevin Z. & Yu, Bingxin & Filipski, Mateusz, 2015. "Farmers' Coping Strategies against an Aggregate Shock: Evidence from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211814, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Ayako Matsuda & Takashi Kurosaki, 2017. "Temperature and Rainfall Index Insurance in India," OSIPP Discussion Paper 17E002, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    14. Froot, Kenneth A., 2001. "The market for catastrophe risk: a clinical examination," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 529-571, May.
    15. Gibson, Rajna & Habib, Michel A. & Ziegler, Alexandre, 2014. "Reinsurance or securitization: The case of natural catastrophe risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 79-100.
    16. Michler, Jeffrey & Shively, Gerald, 2016. "Agricultural Production, Weather Variability, and Technical Change: 40 Years of Evidence from Indi," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236342, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2004. "Consumption smoothing during the economic transition in Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 328-347, June.
    18. Froot, Kenneth A. & O'Connell, Paul G.J., 2008. "On the pricing of intermediated risks: Theory and application to catastrophe reinsurance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 69-85, January.
    19. Harrington, Scott E. & Niehaus, Greg, 2003. "Capital, corporate income taxes, and catastrophe insurance," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 365-389, October.
    20. Xavier Giné & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2008. "Patterns of Rainfall Insurance Participation in Rural India," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(3), pages 539-566, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt Markets; Deposit Insurance; Labor Policies; Emerging Markets;
    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:wbk:wbrwps:4426. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.