Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Academic profession and development agencies, notably the Gates fundation and the World Bank, and the CGIAR consortium (a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future), notably one of its member, The International Rice Research Institute Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Gregory Lane, Ceren Baysan, Erin Kelley, Danamona Andrianarimanana, and Elizabeth Ramirez. PhD candidates in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Work on the flood tolerant rice was presented at the Secretariat of Agriculture in Odisha, India (March 2016), at Tuft University (April 2016), at the Symposium in Memory of Yair Mundlak Hebrew University (?May 2016), at the Galbraith Forum Lecture of the American Applied Economic Association meeting (Boston, August 2016), and at the Gates Foundation (February 2016) These results have been featured by the Center for Evaluation and Global in their Emerging Insights, and the MIT Poverty Action Lab in a Policy Briefcase Work on the Impact of Disaster Funds on Economic Recovery was presented at the COP21 in Paris, December 2015, at the Paris School of Economics (December 2015) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Flood tolerant rice seeds We have published the main paper reporting on the investment made by the farmers who benefitted from having access to the flood-tolerant variety. Drought tolerant rice seeds We have just finished the third survey of the 2013 experiment introducing a drought tolerant variety in Jarkhnad, India. We have yet to analyze the results, but very preliminary results suggest that the increased revenue that resulted from increased employment in year 2 may have facilitated a shift to non-farm activities. A new experiment was set up in the Rajshahi division of Bangladesh, with the introduction of a short duration drought resistant variety. While the short duration variety avoid the main risk of drought that occurs at the end of the season, it presents a negative aspect in having a lower yield. What makes this proposition appealing however is that the short duration allows to insert an additional short season for the growing of high value crop such as pulses or vegetables. Our experiment will thus measure the overall profitability impacts throughout the entire cropping year. We also use this experiment to test alternative methodologies of agricultural extension for increasing diffusion. Flexible financial products Case study interviews of BRAC microfinance clients from the 12 pilot branches were completed in December 2016. The case studies were conducted with clients who took the pre-approved loan, clients who were eligible to take the emergency loan but elected not to, and those who were not eligible for the loan. There were three key lessons resulting from the case studies: 1. The Emergency Loans were overwhelmingly used to rebuild income generating activities. This includes purchasing new seed and inputs to replant lost crops, replacing lost livestock, and repairing damaged business capital. 2. Up-take of the Emergency Loan was concentrated among clients who reported financial loss from the flood. Therefore, the loans seem to mostly be filling a need for emergency liquidity rather than simply offering more credit for long standing investments. 3. Some clients were confused about the details of the Emergency Loan, which resulted in a change in the loan structure. Clients moving forward would be allowed to borrow up-to 50% of the full value of their last approved loan regardless of how much outstanding principal they currently owe. The full-scale experiment over 200 BRAC branches was implemented over the 2016 season. Of the 100 treatment branches, 48 of them were activated to disburse Emergency Loans to eligible clients. Unfortunately, due to administrative problems at BRAC branches and lower than average flood levels, the number of loans disbursed was disappointing at approximately 700 as of the end of October. Discussions have begun with BRAC microfinance to continue the experiment for an additional year to allow observation of client learning, to correct problems in implementation observed in the field this summer, and to have another opportunity to observe a more damaging flood year.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Clarke, Daniel, Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Emmanuel Skoufias Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance: Issues and results December 2015.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
de Janvry, Alain, Alejandro del Valle, Elisabeth Sadoulet Insuring Growth: The Impact of Disaster Funds on Economic Development FERDI Policy Brief B125, November 2015
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
de Janvry, A., Sadoulet, E. and Suri, T., 2016. Field experiments in developing country agriculture, in Banerjee & Duflo (eds) Handbook of Economic Field Experiments.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Emerick, Kyle, Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Manzoor H. Dar. 2016. "Technological innovations, downside risk, and the modernization of agriculture." American Economic Review, 106(6), pp.1537-61
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
de Janvry, Alain and Elisabeth Sadoulet. 2015. Supporting Risk Management by the Poor: What Role for Overseas Development Assistance? In Matthieu Boussichas and Patrick Guillaumont, eds. Financing Sustainable Development: Addressing Vulnerabilities.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
de Janvry, Alain, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Manaswini Rao Adjusting extension models to the way farmers learn FERDI Policy brief B159, September 2016
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Emerick, Kyle, Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Manzoor H. Dar. Optimizing social learning about agricultural technology: Experiments in India and Bangladesh FERDI Policy brief B158, September 2016
|
Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15
Outputs
Target Audience:Academic profession and development agencies, notably the Gates fundation and the World Bank, and the CGIAR consortium (a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future), notably one of its member, The International Rice Research Institute Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Gregory Lane, Ceren Baysan, Erin Kelley, Danamona Andrianarimanana, and Elizabeth Ramirez. PhD candidates in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. Training given to BRAC microfinance research team on the creation and maintenance of a client credit scoring system. Dhaka, Bangladesh July 22, 2015. Greg Lane, a PhD student at UC Berkeley, led the training Training of a BRAC researcher in doing case studies on rice varieties and use of water. Sakib Mahmood, a PhD student at UC Berkeley, led the team How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Work on the flood tolerant rice was presented at Tufts University (Feb. 2015), University of Arizona (March 2015), Yale University October 2015, University of the Philippines Diliman (May 2015). Work on the Impact of Disaster Funds on Economic Recovery was presented at the World Bank (September 2015), Clermont Ferrand (June 2015) Other presentations: - "What complementarity between agronomic and RCT-based social science research? Gates Foundation, December 2014 - "Building resilience and assets for food security UC Berkeley-BRAC-IRRI project in Bangladesh" Basis meeting November 2014 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Flood tolerant rice seeds We have resurveyed the area where we initially distributed flood tolerant seeds in 2011 and in 2012. In some of the villages we also offered seed for sales at the regular market price to measure demand. Results show diffusion across farmers remain low, reaching 17-18% of the population, while demand for the seed is as high as 45% of the population. We conclude that the main constraint to the diffusion of the new variety is lack of organized supply. Drought tolerant rice seeds A similar experiment was set up in 2013 to measure the benefits of a drought tolerant seed. Preliminary results show that the benefits of the seeds extend to the farm workers, through an increase in labor demand for harvest where the drought tolerant seed is used. Flexible financial products The emergency loan product was developed in collaboration with BRAC. This entailed establishing a credit score for BRAC clients for defining the eligibility. A pilot offering of the emergency loan was extended to 4 branches of BRAC over the summer of 2015. The implementation went fine. The full rollout of the new emergency loan is planned for the next agricultural season in April-May 2016.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2015. "Sixty Years of Development Economics: What Have we Learned for Economic Development?," Revue dEconomie du D�veloppement, 22: 9-19
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Cai, Jing, Alain de Janvry, and Elisabeth Sadoulet. 2015. Social Networks and the Decision to Insure. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 81-108
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
de Janvry, Alain and Elisabeth Sadoulet. 2015. Supporting Risk Management by the Poor: What Role for Overseas Development Assistance? In Matthieu Boussichas and Patrick Guillaumont, eds. Financing Sustainable Development: Addressing Vulnerabilities
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Carter, M., de Janvry, A., Sadoulet, E., Sarris, A. 2015. "Index-based weather insurance for developing countries: A review of evidence and a set of propositions for up-scaling", Revue dEconomie du Developpement, 23(1):5-57
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Craig MCINTOSH, Felix POVEL, Elisabeth SADOULET Utility, Risk, and Demand for Incomplete Insurance. . FERDI Policy Brief B122
|
Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Academic profession and development agencies, notably the Gates fundation and the World Bank, and the CGIAR consortium (a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future), notably one of its member, The International Rice Research Institute Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Kyle Emerick, Ceren Baysan, Erin Kelley, Danamona Andrianarimanana, and Fiona Wilkes. PhD candidates in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Result of the experimental games on the demand for insurance were presented in several meetings: - "Utility, Risk, and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Cooperatives", PACDEV, UCLA, March 2014. Work on the flood tolerant rice was presented at: - Presentation "A Flood of Investments: Flood Tolerant rice and farm Investment in India". North-Eastern University Development Consortium NEUDC, November 2013" - Presentation "Risk and the modernization of agriculture" at the UNU-WIDER International Development Conference, Institutional Reforms for Transformation, Inclusion and Sustainability, 29-30 June 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam - The Behavioral Effects of Reducing Risk with Swarna-Sub1 , STRASA Annual Meeting May 2014 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Flood tolerant rice seeds After having shown that the flood-tolerant seed Swarna-Sub1, a promising new rice seed that sharply reduces the susceptibility of the crop to flood damage, was a superior variety (in that it does not perform less well under normal non-flood conditions), we focus on the effect of this reduction in production risk on economic behavior. We show that access to this new technology leads to increases in area cultivated, fertilizer used, and the likelihood of using a more modern planting method. Also, the technology reduces precautionary savings of grain for consumption and increases the use of agricultural credit. By inducing increased investments in fertilizer, more planting-stage investments, and increased uptake of credit, this form of technological progress leads to substantial productivity gains even when shocks do not occur. Put differently, self-insurance is costly and technologies that reduce the need to self-insure have significant potential to increase agricultural productivity. Our estimates indicate that the productivity gains due to the decreased need to self-insure are around 41% of the size of the agronomic effects that arise solely due to improved plant breeding. These results suggest that efforts to reduce the susceptibility of commonly used seeds to weather extremes can go a long way in increasing agricultural productivity. While the first major Green Revolution was successful at increasing agricultural productivity in favorable areas throughout the world, productivity in rainfed areas under weather stress has remained low. Using flood tolerance as an example, we have shown that technological advances that improve resilience can further enhance agricultural productivity by causing farmers to re-optimize their production practices. Not accounting for this re-optimization as a result of technological change leads to a large under-estimation of the return from investing in research and development.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Sadoulet Elisabeth and Alain de Janvry. Risk and demand for incomplete insurance: Lab experiments with Guatemalan cooperatives. FERDI Policy Brief 71, 2013
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet. 20 Ans dEconomie du D�veloppement: Vers une meilleure prise en compte du risque et de la vuln�rabilit�. FERDI Policy Brief B91, March 2014
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Andrew Abordonado, A�ssata Coulibaly. Progress with flexible microfinance products: A review of evidence and a proposal. FERDI Policy Brief B83, January 2014
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Emerick, Kyle, Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Manzoor Dar Risk and the modernization of agriculture. 2014.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Larry Karp, Danamona Andrianarimanana, and Fiona Wilkes. Sovereign Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (SDRFI) Programs: A concept note on program design and ex-ante impact appraisal methodology. 2014
|
Progress 01/01/13 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: For the Guatemala project: Academic profession and development agencies, notably the German development Bank KfW and the International Fund for Agricultural Development For the Indian Project: Academic profession and development agencies, notably the Gates fundation, and The International Rice Reserach Institute Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Felix Povel from KfW Development Finance in Germany Kyle Emerick and Marieke Kleemans, PhD candidates in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Result of the experimental games on the demand for insurance were presented in several meetings: - “Utility, Risk, and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Cooperatives”, Seminar at the CERDI, France, April 5, 2013. - “Risk and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Cooperatives, I4 technical meeting at UC Davis, September13, 2013. - “Risk and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Cooperatives, Workshop on “Flexible financial products in microfinance to address risk”, FERDI, Clermont-Ferrand, June 12-14 2013 - We organized a full day on Index Insurance at the workshop on “Flexible financial products in microfinance to address risk”, FERDI, Clermont-Ferrand, June 12-14 2013. Work on the flood tolerant rice was presented at: - “Impact of Stress-Tolerant Rice on Farmer Welfare in India” CEGA- J-PAL- Energy Institute Symposium, “Evidence to Action: Promoting Global Development in a Changing Climate”, April 25, 2013 - Seminar “Flood-tolerant rice reduces yield variability, benefiting poor farmers the most” Universite Gaston Berger February 20, 2013, and Berkley Economics Department Sept 24, 2013 - Presentation “Flood-tolerant rice reduces yield variability, benefiting poor farmers the most” PACDEV conference March 9, 2013 - A web page describes the project http://www.atai-research.org/projects/adoption-improved-fertilizer-management-practices-under-risk-reduction-due-submergence-tole What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Analysis of the willingness to pay for insurance The analysis confirmed our preliminary results that there is a clear demand for sharing the payout according to losses within the group. There is also some tolerance for group heterogeneity. However there is a clear dislike for group (at given risk coverage), which almost completely offset the improved insurance that the group can provide. We thus find the unexpected result that the demand for group insurance with maximal sharing is no greater than the demand for individual insurance. We also looked at how the demand for the excess rainfall insurance was affected by the presence of other sources of risk, drought or disease in the case of coffee. This is a generic issue that has received little attention in empirical studies, except under what has been called basis risk (residual risk even when insured), which comes from the discrepancy between the rainfall index collected at the weather station and the actual rainfall on individual fields and the fact that most insurance are only partial (payout are lower than losses). We find that when in presence of this other source of risk, the willingness to pay for the excess rainfall insurance falls by about 30%, even when the residual risk is not different from cases where it was due to the partially insured excess rainfall. This is in a sense a bit surprising, as one would expect that when losses under drought or pest are less severe than under excess rainfall, the insurance keep all its value of covering the worse years. We also look at the particular case where the uninsured risk is large meaning that it may happen that the insurance may worsen the worst cases where you would have to pay the insurance premium in years where your crop is affected by the worst shock. When the losses under the other risk can be larger than that of excess rainfall, the willingness to pay further decline by 6%. Here we did expect a larger differential response in case of large uninsured risk. This case seems to exhibit one more example of decisions that are influenced by the context and how the product is presented rather than on the basis of what economists would call strict rationality. In this case strict rationality would have the insurance choice be valued solely based on its value as risk reduction, regardless of whether the uninsured risk is due to partial insurance or to another source of risk. This result may explain the very low uptake of weather index insurance Flood tolerant rice seeds Approximately 30% of the cultivated rice area in India is prone to crop damage from prolonged flooding. We use a randomized field experiment in 128 villages of Orissa India to show that Swarna-Sub1, a recently released submergence-tolerant rice variety, has significant positive impacts on rice yield when fields are submerged for 7 to 14 days with no yield penalty without flooding. We estimate that Swarna-Sub1 offers an approximate 45% increase in yields over the current popular variety when fields are submerged for 10 days. We show additionally that lowlying areas prone to flooding tend to be more heavily occupied by people belonging to lower caste social groups. Thus, a policy relevant implication of our findings is that flood-tolerant rice can deliver both efficiency gains, through reduced yield variability and higher expected yield, and equity gains in disproportionately benefiting the most marginal group of farmers.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Dar, Manzoor, Alain de Janvry, Kyle Emerick, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and David Raitzer. Flood-tolerant rice reduces yield variability and raises expected yield, differentially benefiting socially disadvantaged. Scientific Reports 3:3315, 2013
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
de Janvry, Alain, Craig McIntosh, Felix Povell, and Elisabeth Sadoulet. Utility, Risk, and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Cooperatives . March 2013
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Dar, Manzoor, Alain de Janvry, Kyle Emerick, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and David Raitzer. A flood of investments: Flood-tolerant rice and farm investment in India. June 2013
|
Progress 10/01/12 to 12/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: We have performed two main activities: (i) We have conducted experimental games with coffee producers, members of cooperatives in Guatemala, to elicit their willingness to pay for an index insurance for excess rainfall. While the insurance product is imperfect as it leaves basis risk uncovered (the difference between events at the station and in the farmer's plot) it at least has the advantage of low cost and avoidance of moral hazards (excessive claims by insured farmers) and adverse selection (neglect by insured farmers of protecting their crops from damage). The purpose of this analysis was to assess whether a group insurance that would allow some internal loss adjustment among the members would have a higher demand than an individual insurance that bears important basis risk. (ii) We have put into place the first randomized control trial for the distribution of flood tolerant rice seeds in the lowland area of Orissa, India. Seeds were given to 5 farmers in each of 128 villages in May 2012. A survey will be conducted in February-March to assess the value of these seeds in farmer fields. PARTICIPANTS: Professor Elisabeth Sadoulet and Professor Alain de Janvry from UC Berkeley. Professor Craig McIntosh at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego. Felix Povel from KfW Development Finance in Germany. Manzoor Dar and David Raitzer from the International Rice Research InstituteKyle Emerick and Marieke Kleemans, PhD candidates in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. TARGET AUDIENCES: Academic profession and development agencies. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
A very preliminary analysis of the willingness to pay for insurance shows that: There is a clear demand for sharing the payout according to losses within the group. There is also some tolerance for group heterogeneity. However there is a clear dislike for group (at given risk coverage), which almost completely offset the improved insurance that the group can provide. We thus find the unexpected result that the demand for group insurance with maximal sharing is no greater than the demand for individual insurance. Next step in the analysis will look at the heterogeneity across producers. Very preliminary results of the experimental games on the demand for insurance were presented at two meetings: I4 Technical meeting, Rome , Italy 13-14 June 2012, and IAAE Conference, Iguacu, Brazil, August 2012.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
|
|