Research Interests

• Poverty traps, vulnerability and rural welfare dynamics
• Risk management mechanisms in poor communities
• Rural financial market, microinsurance, microcredit
• Field experiments in development economics and policy impact evaluation
• Applications of financial derivatives to development policies

Publications

• “Designing Index Based Livestock Insurance for Managing Asset Risk in Northern Kenya”, Journal of Risk and Insurance, forthcoming (with A. Mude, C. Barrett and M. Carter)
• “Social Network Capital, Economic Mobility and Poverty Traps”, Journal of Economic Inequality, forthcoming (with C. Barrett)
• “Index Insurance for Pro-poor Conservation of Hornbills in Thailand”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (34): 13951-56, 2011 (with C. Barrett, T. Janvilisri, S. Mudsri, C. Niratisayakul and P. Poonswad)
•  “Explaining Index Based Livestock Insurance to Pastoralists”, Agricultural Finance Review 70 (3): 333-352, 2010 (with J. McPeak and A. Mude)
• “Dynamic Field Experiments in Development Economics: Risk Valuation in Morocco, Kenya and Peru”, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39 (2): 1-17, 2010 (with T. Lybbert, F. Galarza, J. McPeak, C. Barrett, S. Boucher, M. Carter, A. Fadlaoui and A. Mude)
• “Improving Humanitarian Response to Slow-Onset Disasters Using Famine-Indexed Weather Derivatives”, Agricultural Finance Review 68 (1): 169-195, 2008 (with C. Turvey, A. Mude and C. Barrett)
• “Using Weather Index Insurance to Improve Drought Response for Famine Prevention”, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 89 (5): 1262-1268, 2007 (with C. Barrett, A. Mude and C. Turvey)

Working Papers

• “The Performance of Index-Based Livestock Insurance in the Presence of a Poverty Trap”, revise and resubmit at Journal of Development Economics (with A. Mude, C. Barrett and C. Turvey)
• “Willingness to Pay for Index Based Livestock Insurance: Results from A Field Experiment in Northern Kenya”, under review at American Journal of Agricultural Economics (with A. Mude)

Ongoing Research

• Pilot and impact evaluation of weather index insurance products for enhancing productive safety nets and climate change adaptation in Kenya and Ethiopia (with International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, C. Barrett, M. Carter and J. McPeak)
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• Rural financial market, systemic structures of weather risks and viability of weather risk market in China
• Securitization of famine risk and the competitiveness of famine indexed derivatives as philanthropy and social investment ventures

Teaching

• IDEC8081 The Economics of Incentives and Institutions: Applications in Developing Countries

Seminar Convened

• Economics of Trade and Development Seminar Series