Insurance against Poverty [Hardcover]

Poor people in developing countries are often affected by droughts, floods, illness, crop failure, job loss, and economic downturns. Informal insurance mechanisms provide some protection, but are weak in the face of major or recurring calamities. Most people cannot obtain formal insurance, and the lack of insurance and social protection therefore constrains investment, growth, and poverty reduction. Public action to remedy this deficiency is merited, but what form should it take? This book evaluates alternatives in widening insurance and social protection provision, including sustainability and poverty effects, in thorough, up-to-date thematic papers and case studies, development assessments, and policy analyses.

Overview,Stefan Dercon
Risk and Insurance: evidence
1. Risk, Insurance and Poverty: a review,Stefan Dercon
2. Consumption Smoothing Across Space: Testing Theories of Risk-Sharing in the ICRISAT Study Region of South India,Jonathan Morduch
Risk and Poverty: Theory
3. The Two Poverties,Abhijit Banerjee
4. Inequality and Risk,Marcel Fafchamps
Risk and Poverty Persistence
5. Household Income Dynamics in Rural China,Jyotsna Jalan and Martin Ravallion
6. Health, Shocks and Poverty Persistence,Stefan Dercon and John Hoddinott
7. The Macroeconomic Repercussions of Agricultural Shocks and their Implications for Insurance,Paul Collier
Identifying the Vulnerable
8. Measuring Vulnerability to Poverty,Gisele Kamanou and Jonathan Morduch
9. Targeting and Informal Insurance,Ethan Ligon
Risk and Social Institutions
10. Risk-Sharing and Endogenous Network Formation,Joachim De Weerdt
11. Is a Friend in Need a Friend Indeed? Inclusion and Exclusion in Mutual Insurance Networks in Southern Ghana,Markus Goldstein, Alain de Janvry and Elisal³%