Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments

Despite limited uptake, index insurance is often seen as one of the most remarkable innovations of the past decades to help smallholder farmers manage risks. This paper uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to aggregate evidence from existing experiments and assess the external validity of their result...

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Main Authors:	Castaing, Pauline, Gazeaud, Jules
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2022
Subjects:	SMALL FARM INSURANCE INDEX INSURANCE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES INSTITUTIONAL REFORM INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE GROWTH EXTERNAL VALIDITY AGRICULTURAL DECISIONS INDEX INSURANCE BAYESIAN HIERARCHICAL MODELING
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099434009062278901/IDU08ec8b63d0486b0492b0a43908a198397ca4e http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37964

id	okr-10986-37964
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-379642022-09-14T05:10:27Z Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments Castaing, Pauline Gazeaud, Jules SMALL FARM INSURANCE INDEX INSURANCE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES INSTITUTIONAL REFORM INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE GROWTH EXTERNAL VALIDITY AGRICULTURAL DECISIONS INDEX INSURANCE BAYESIAN HIERARCHICAL MODELING Despite limited uptake, index insurance is often seen as one of the most remarkable innovations of the past decades to help smallholder farmers manage risks. This paper uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to aggregate evidence from existing experiments and assess the external validity of their results. The findings show positive but highly heterogeneous responses to index insurance across experiments. Interventions expanding access to index insurance typically boost productive investments by 0.06–0.11 standard deviation on average. However, treatment effects display substantial heterogeneity and there is no evidence that this heterogeneity can be meaningfully explained by basic household characteristics. The existing evidence base thus offers limited insights to predict the impact of index insurance in new settings. The paper concludes that governments and development agencies should remain cautious before investing in the widespread expansion of index insurance. 2022-09-06T19:31:21Z 2022-09-06T19:31:21Z 2022-09 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099434009062278901/IDU08ec8b63d0486b0492b0a43908a198397ca4e http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37964 English en Policy Research Working Papers;10161 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English English
topic	SMALL FARM INSURANCE INDEX INSURANCE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES INSTITUTIONAL REFORM INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE GROWTH EXTERNAL VALIDITY AGRICULTURAL DECISIONS INDEX INSURANCE BAYESIAN HIERARCHICAL MODELING
spellingShingle	SMALL FARM INSURANCE INDEX INSURANCE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES INSTITUTIONAL REFORM INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE GROWTH EXTERNAL VALIDITY AGRICULTURAL DECISIONS INDEX INSURANCE BAYESIAN HIERARCHICAL MODELING Castaing, Pauline Gazeaud, Jules Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
relation	Policy Research Working Papers;10161
description	Despite limited uptake, index insurance is often seen as one of the most remarkable innovations of the past decades to help smallholder farmers manage risks. This paper uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to aggregate evidence from existing experiments and assess the external validity of their results. The findings show positive but highly heterogeneous responses to index insurance across experiments. Interventions expanding access to index insurance typically boost productive investments by 0.06–0.11 standard deviation on average. However, treatment effects display substantial heterogeneity and there is no evidence that this heterogeneity can be meaningfully explained by basic household characteristics. The existing evidence base thus offers limited insights to predict the impact of index insurance in new settings. The paper concludes that governments and development agencies should remain cautious before investing in the widespread expansion of index insurance.
format	Working Paper
author	Castaing, Pauline Gazeaud, Jules
author_facet	Castaing, Pauline Gazeaud, Jules
author_sort	Castaing, Pauline
title	Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
title_short	Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
title_full	Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
title_fullStr	Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
title_full_unstemmed	Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments
title_sort	do index insurance programs live up to their promises? aggregating evidence from multiple experiments
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2022
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099434009062278901/IDU08ec8b63d0486b0492b0a43908a198397ca4e http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37964
_version_	1764488216180686848

Do Index Insurance Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Aggregating Evidence from Multiple Experiments

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