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  • Article

Marketing Complex Financial Products in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Rainfall Insurance in India

By: Sarthak Gaurav, Shawn A. Cole and Jeremy Tobacman
Recent financial liberalization in emerging economies has led to the rapid introduction of new financial products. Lack of experience with financial products, low levels of education, and low financial literacy may slow adoption of these products. This article reports... View Details
Keywords: Literacy; Insurance; Marketing; Decisions; Demand and Consumers; Financial Instruments; Emerging Markets; Education; Personal Finance; Agribusiness; Developing Countries and Economies; Innovation and Invention; Gujarat
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  • Article

Targeting Weather Insurance Markets

By: Anita Mukherjee, Shawn Cole and Jeremy Tobacman
The suitability of insurance products often depends greatly on individual circumstances. This paper examines the challenges of heterogeneity in a relatively new product, weather‐indexed insurance. This index insurance product has been launched in over a dozen... View Details
Keywords: Index Insurance; Labor Markets; Self-insurance; Self-protection; Weather; Insurance; Markets; Household; Risk Management
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  • April 2020
  • Article

Field Comparisons of Incentive-Compatible Preference Elicitation Techniques

By: Shawn A. Cole, A. Nilesh Fernando, Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman
Knowledge of consumer demand is important for firms, policy makers, and economists. One common tool for incentive-compatible demand elicitation, the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, has been widely used in laboratory settings but rarely evaluated for... View Details
Keywords: Incentive-compatible Elicitation; Experimental Methods; Weather Insurance; Rainfall Insurance; Agricultural Extension; Demand and Consumers
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  • February 2007 (Revised October 2007)
  • Case

BASIX

By: Shawn A. Cole and Peter Tufano
BASIX, an Indian microfinance corporation, must decide whether to continue to sell weather insurance to its clients. A brand-new financial product, weather insurance pays if measured rainfall during the growing season falls below a pre-specified limit. Mr. Sattaiah,... View Details
Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Microfinance; Insurance; Risk Management; Banking Industry; India
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  • September 2012
  • Case

BASIX (Abridged)

By: Shawn Cole and Peter Tufano
BASIX, an Indian microfinance corporation, must decide whether to continue to sell weather insurance to its clients. A brand-new financial product, weather insurance pays if measured rainfall during the growing season falls below a pre-specified limit. Mr. Sattaiah,... View Details
Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Microfinance; Household; Risk Management; Insurance; Banking Industry; India
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  • 2013
  • Working Paper

How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Shawn Cole, Xavier Gine and James Vickery
Weather is a key source of income risk, particularly in emerging market economies. This paper uses a randomized controlled trial involving a sample of Indian farmers to study how an innovative rainfall insurance product affects production decisions. We find that... View Details
Keywords: Risk Management; Production; Weather; Insurance; Emerging Markets; Agribusiness; Insurance Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India
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  • May 2014
  • Article

Dynamics of Demand for Index Insurance: Evidence from a Long-Run Field Experiment

By: Shawn A. Cole, Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman
This paper estimates how experimentally-manipulated experiences with a novel financial product, rainfall index insurance, affect subsequent insurance demand. Using a seven-year panel, we develop three main findings. First, recent experience matters for demand,... View Details
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  • January 2013
  • Article

Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India

By: Shawn A. Cole, Xavier Gine, Jeremy Tobacman, Petia Topalova, Robert M. Townsend and James Vickery
Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance... View Details
Keywords: Risk Management; Household; India
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  • 15 May 2009
  • Working Paper Summaries

Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India

Keywords: by Shawn Cole, Xavier Giné, Jeremy Tobacman, Petia Topalova, Robert Townsend & James Vickery
  • Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

Finance Finance May 2014 Article Dynamics of Demand for Index Insurance: Evidence from a Long-Run Field Experiment By: Shawn A. Cole , Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman This paper estimates how experimentally-manipulated experiences with a novel financial product, View Details
  • 31 Jan 2012
  • First Look

First Look: Jan. 31

colleagues to refocus radically on truly modern phenomena, on anticipating the future, and on altering our theorizing and methods accordingly, or we will never catch up. Marketing Complex Financial Products in Emerging Markets: Evidence from View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne & Carmen Nobel
  • 08 Nov 2024
  • Op-Ed

How Private Investors Can Help Solve Africa's Climate Crisis

these international actors to fund everything is just not realistic. However, according to Sifma research, more than $120 trillion (with a T) in private money from insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, sovereign funds, and... View Details
Keywords: by John Macomber; Green Technology; Energy
  • 30 Oct 2007
  • First Look

First Look: October 30, 2007

Course MaterialsBASIX Harvard Business School Case 207-099 BASIX, an Indian microfinance corporation, must decide whether to continue to sell weather insurance to its clients. A brand-new financial product, weather View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • 24 Sep 2024
  • Blog Post

Climate Finance in Africa: Health, Self-Interest, Avoided Future Cost

private money from insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, sovereign funds, and high net worth individuals currently invested in global fixed income securities, mostly earning near zero real yields. How can this capital find... View Details
  • 21 Apr 2009
  • First Look

First Look: April 21, 2009

consumption fluctuations faced by individuals, households, and firms. Yet much of this promise remains unrealized. In this paper, we study the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product designed to... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
  • 30 Sep 2014
  • First Look

First Look: September 30

Experiment By: Cole, Shawn, Xavier Giné, and James Vickery Abstract—Weather is a key source of income risk, particularly in emerging market economies. This paper uses a randomized controlled trial involving a sample of Indian farmers to study how an innovative View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • 24 Apr 2012
  • First Look

First Look: April 24

to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall View Details
Keywords: Carmen Nobel
  • Web

How Private Investors Can Help Solve Africa's Climate Crisis | Working Knowledge

according to Sifma research , more than $120 trillion (with a T) in private money from insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, sovereign funds, and high-net-worth individuals is currently being invested in global fixed-income... View Details
  • 02 Oct 2018
  • First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 2, 2018

financial product, weather insurance pays if measured rainfall during the growing season falls below a pre-specified limit. Mr. Sattaiah, managing director of the BASIX's bank, considers a revised View Details
Keywords: Dina Gerdeman