Webinar

03
Aug
Index-based Agricultural Insurance

Monday, August 3, 2015

The webinar will take place on Monday, 3 August 2015 from 15:00-16:00 CET (Rome time). The webinar will be accessible online through this link

About the webinar

Unlike conventional agricultural insurance, which indemnifies policyholders for verifiable production losses arising from multiple perils, index insurance indemnifies policyholders based on the observed value of a specific “index” or other variable that is highly correlated with losses, most commonly rainfall.  Index insurance exhibits lower transaction costs than conventional insurance, potentially making it more affordable to poor farmers in the developing world.  However, it also offers less effective individual risk protection due to lack of coverage of losses unrelated to the index.  Our presentation offers a general introduction to index insurance and provides a review of lessons learned from pilot programs and theoretical and empirical research on index insurance in since 2000.  We will also discuss current trends in index insurance research and product and market development focused on reaching smallholder families in developing countries.

About the presenter

Prof. Mario J. Miranda is a professor of Development Economics & Quantitative Methods, The Ohio State University. His research focuses on computational modeling of stochastic and dynamic economic systems with applications to agricultural risk management, catastrophic insurance and reinsurance, agricultural and  environmental policy, and microfinance and insurance in developing countries. Research has produced one book, more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, and several major computational modeling and risk management software packages.He has also won numerous university research and teaching awards. Miranda currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Society for Computational Economics, and is an associate editor of both the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and the Journal of Computational Economics. Miranda has been consultant to the World Bank and FAO, numerous private corporations, and several USDA branches, including the Office of the Chief Economist, the Economic Research Service, Risk Management Agency, and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. He joined the Ohio State University in 1988.