IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5459.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Microinsurance : a case study of the Indian rainfall index insurance market

Author

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

Abstract

Rainfall index insurance provides a payout based on measured local rainfall during key phases of the agricultural season, and in principle can help rural households diversify a key source of idiosyncratic risk. This paper describes basic features of rainfall insurance contracts offered in India since 2003, and documents stylized facts about market demand and the distribution of payouts. The authors summarize the results of previous research on this market, which provides evidence that price, liquidity constraints, and trust all present significant barriers to increased take-up. They also discuss potential future prospects for rainfall insurance and other index insurance products.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/11/16/000158349_20111116161636/Rendered/PDF/WPS5459.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esther Duflo & Michael Kremer & Jonathan Robinson, 2008. "How High Are Rates of Return to Fertilizer? Evidence from Field Experiments in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 482-488, May.
    2. Youngjae Lim & Robert Townsend, 1998. "General Equilibrium Models of Financial Systems: Theory and Measurement in Village Economies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 59-118, January.
    3. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    4. Ricardo J.Caballero, 2001. "Macroeconomic volatility in Latin America: a view and three case studies," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 28(1 Year 20), pages 5-52, June.
    5. Sharon Maccini & Dean Yang, 2009. "Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1006-1026, June.
    6. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    7. Hill, Ruth Vargas & Viceisza, Angelino, 2010. "An experiment on the impact of weather shocks and insurance on risky investment," IFPRI discussion papers 974, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Feder, Gershon & Just, Richard E & Zilberman, David, 1985. "Adoption of Agricultural Innovations in Developing Countries: A Survey," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 255-298, January.
    9. Shawn Cole & Thomas Sampson & Bilal Zia, 2011. "Prices or Knowledge? What Drives Demand for Financial Services in Emerging Markets?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 1933-1967, December.
    10. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2009. "Microfinance Meets the Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 167-192, Winter.
    11. Tavneet Suri, 2009. "Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption," NBER Working Papers 15346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. 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.
    13. Skees, Jerry & Hazell, P. B. R. & Miranda, Mario, 1999. "New approaches to crop yield insurance in developing countries:," EPTD discussion papers 55, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. 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.
    15. Ricardo J. Caballero, 2000. "Macroeconomic Volatility in Latin America: A Conceptual Framework and Three Case Studies," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2000), pages 31-107, August.
    16. World Bank, 2006. "Overcoming Drought : Adaptation Strategies for Andhra Pradesh, India," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7085, December.
    17. Hongbin Cai & Yuyu Chen & Hanming Fang & Li-An Zhou, 2009. "Microinsurance, Trust and Economic Development: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-034, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    18. 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.
    19. Jonathan Morduch, 1995. "Income Smoothing and Consumption Smoothing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 103-114, Summer.
    20. Esther Duflo & Christopher Udry, 2003. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Côte D'ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices," Working Papers 857, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    21. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "Trusting the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2557-2600, December.
    22. 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.
    23. HwaJung Choi, 2007. "Are Remittances Insurance? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in the Philippines," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 219-248, May.
    24. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    25. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Binswanger, Hans P, 1993. "Wealth, Weather Risk and the Composition and Profitability of Agricultural Investments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(416), pages 56-78, January.
    26. World Bank, 2005. "Managing Agricultural Production Risk : Innovations in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 14434, The World Bank Group.
    27. Xavier Giné & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2007. "Statistical Analysis of Rainfall Insurance Payouts in Southern India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1248-1254.
    28. Neil A. Doherty & Harris Schlesinger, 1990. "Rational Insurance Purchasing: Consideration of Contract Nonperformance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 243-253.
    29. World Bank, 2005. "Managing Agricultural Production Risk : Innovations in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 8797, The World Bank Group.
    30. Lybbert, Travis J. & Galarza, Francisco B. & McPeak, John G. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Boucher, Stephen R. & Carter, Michael R. & Chantarat, Sommarat & Fadlaoui, Aziz & Mude, Andrew G., 2010. "Dynamic Field Experiments in Development Economics: Risk Valuation in Morocco, Kenya, and Peru," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-17, April.
    31. Douglas L. Miller & Anna L. Paulson, 2007. "Risk taking and the quality of informal insurance: gambling and remittances in Thailand," Working Paper Series WP-07-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    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. Keiko Fukumori & Ayumi Arai & Tomoya Matsumoto, 2022. "Risk Management for Smallholder Farmers: An Empirical Study on the Adoption of Weather-Index Crop Insurance in Rural Kenya," Working Papers 230, JICA Research Institute.
    2. Farrin, Kathleen M. & Miranda, Mario J., 2013. "Premium Benefits? A Heterogeneous Agent Model of Credit-Linked Index Insurance and Farm Technology Adoption," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 149666, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Lima Miquelluti, Daniel & Ozaki, Vitor & Miquelluti, David J., 2020. "An application of geographically weighted quantile LASSO to weather index insurance design," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304288, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2018. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a systematic review," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 65-93, October.
    5. Leigh Johnson, 2013. "Index Insurance and the Articulation of Risk-Bearing Subjects," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2663-2681, November.
    6. 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.
    7. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2017. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a survey," Research Africa Network Working Papers 17/009, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    8. Felipe Kast & Dina Pomeranz, 2013. "Saving More to Borrow Less: Experimental Evidence from Access to Formal Savings Accounts in Chile," Harvard Business School Working Papers 14-001, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2014.
    9. 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.
    10. Michler, Jeffrey D. & Viens, Frederi & Shively, Gerald, 2015. "Risk, Agricultural Production, and Weahter Index Insurance in Village South Asia," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212460, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Farrin, Katie & Miranda, Mario J., 2015. "A heterogeneous agent model of credit-linked index insurance and farm technology adoption," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 199-211.
    12. Aguilar, Arturo & Vicarelli, Marta, 2022. "El Niño and children: Medium-term effects of early-life weather shocks on cognitive and health outcomes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    13. Clarke,Daniel Jonathan & Mahul,Olivier & Rao,Kolli Nageswara & Verma,Niraj, 2012. "Weather based crop insurance in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5985, The World Bank.
    14. Xu, Lisa & Zia, Bilal, 2012. "Financial literacy around the world : an overview of the evidence with practical suggestions for the way forward," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6107, The World Bank.
    15. Vieider, Ferdinand M. & Truong, Nghi & Martinsson, Peter & Pham Khanh Nam & Martinsson, Peter, 2013. "Risk preferences and development revisited: A field experiment in Vietnam," Discussion Papers, WZB Junior Research Group Risk and Development SP II 2013-403, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    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 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Antoine Leblois & Philippe Quirion, 2013. "Agricultural insurances based on meteorological indices: realizations, methods and research challenges," Post-Print hal-00656778, HAL.
    4. Mobarak, A. Mushfiq & Rosenzweig, Mark, 2012. "Selling Formal Insurance to the Informally Insured," Working Papers 97, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    5. Felipe Kast & Dina Pomeranz, 2013. "Saving More to Borrow Less: Experimental Evidence from Access to Formal Savings Accounts in Chile," Harvard Business School Working Papers 14-001, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2014.
    6. Castells-Quintana, David & Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & McDermott, Thomas K.J., 2018. "Adaptation to climate change: A review through a development economics lens," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 183-196.
    7. Barnett, Barry J. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Skees, Jerry R., 2008. "Poverty Traps and Index-Based Risk Transfer Products," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1766-1785, October.
    8. Awel Y. & Azomahou T.T., 2015. "Risk preference or financial literacy? Behavioural experiment on index insurance demand," MERIT Working Papers 2015-005, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    9. Hill, Ruth Vargas & Robles, Miguel, 2011. "Flexible insurance for heterogeneous farmers: Results from a small-scale pilot in Ethiopia," IFPRI discussion papers 1092, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Million Tadesse & Bekele Shiferaw & Olaf Erenstein, 2015. "Weather index insurance for managing drought risk in smallholder agriculture: lessons and policy implications for sub-Saharan Africa," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, December.
    11. World Bank, 2001. "Risk Management in South Asia : A Poverty Focused Approach," World Bank Publications - Reports 15449, The World Bank Group.
    12. Castells-Quintana, David & del Pilar Lopez-Uribe, Maria & McDermott, Thomas K.J., 2018. "A review of adaptation to climate change through a development economics lens," Working Papers 309605, National University of Ireland, Galway, Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit.
    13. 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.
    14. Daniel J. Clarke, 2016. "A Theory of Rational Demand for Index Insurance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 283-306, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Timothée Demont, 2020. "Coping with shocks: the impact of Self-Help Groups on migration and food security," AMSE Working Papers 2016, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    17. Newman, Carol & Tarp, Finn, 2020. "Shocks and agricultural investment decisions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    18. Asfaw, Solomon & Mortari, Andrea Piano & Arslan, Aslihan & Karfakis, Panagiotis & Lipper, Leslie, 2015. "Welfare Impacts of Climate Shocks: Evidence from Uganda," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 229060, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Martin Eling & Shailee Pradhan & Joan T Schmit, 2014. "The Determinants of Microinsurance Demand," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 39(2), pages 224-263, April.
    20. Jing Cai, 2016. "The Impact of Insurance Provision on Household Production and Financial Decisions," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 44-88, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate Change Economics; Insurance Law; Debt Markets; Financial Literacy; Insurance&Risk Mitigation;
    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:5459. 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.