@article{Michler:212460,
      recid = {212460},
      author = {Michler, Jeffrey D. and Viens, Frederi and Shively,  Gerald},
      title = {Risk, Agricultural Production, and Weahter Index Insurance  in Village South Asia},
      address = {2015},
      number = {1008-2016-80349},
      pages = {30},
      year = {2015},
      abstract = {We investigate the sources of variance in crop output and  measure their relative im-
portance in the context of  weather index insurance for smallholder farmers. We  use
parcel-level panel data from South Asia and a  multilevel modeling approach to isolate
the different  sources of variance. We then measure how large a role  weather plays in
explaining variance in yields. Using  Bayesian methods, we draw the underlying distri-
bution of  the random error term responsible for weather uncertainty,  which is highly
skewed and non-normal. We find that  variance in weather accounts for a small but
important  fraction of total variance in crop output. We also derive  pricing and payout
schedules for actuarially fair weather  index insurance. Our results shed light on the
low uptake  rates of index insurance in South Asia and provide  direction for designing
index insurance with less basis  risk for farmers.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/212460},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.212460},
}