Agro-biodiversity as natural insurance and the development of financial insurance markets
- Agro-biodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk averse farmers. We employ a conceptual ecological-economic model to analyze the choice of agrobiodiversity by risk averse farmers who have access to financial insurance. We study the implications for individually and socially optimal agro-ecosystem management and policy design when on-farm agro-biodiversity, through ecosystem processes at higher hierarchical levels, generates a positive externality on other farmers. We show that for the individual farmer natural insurance from agro-biodiversty and financial insurance are substitutes. While an improved access to financial insurance leads to lower agro-biodiversity, the e_ects on the market failure problem (due to the external benefits of on-farm agro-biodiversity) and on welfare are determined by properties of the agro-ecosystem and agro-biodiversity’s external benefits. We derive a specific condition on agro-ecosystem functioning under which, if financial insurance becomes more accessible, welfare in the absence of regulation increases or decreases.
Verfasserangaben: | Stefan BaumgärtnerORCiDGND, Martin F. QuaasORCiD |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:gbv:luen4-opus4-5228 |
URL: | https://pub-data.leuphana.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/522 |
Schriftenreihe (Bandnummer): | University of Lüneburg Working paper series in economics (61) |
Dokumentart: | Research Paper |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Erscheinungsjahr: | 2007 |
Datum der Veröffentlichung (online): | 12.09.2007 |
Datum der Freischaltung: | 12.09.2007 |
Freies Schlagwort / Tag: | agro-biodiversity; agro-ecosystem management; ecosystem services; insurance; risk-aversion |
GND-Schlagwort: | Biodiversität; Ökosystem; Agrarökosystem; Agrarplanung; Versicherung |
Fakultät / Forschungszentrum: | Universität / Frühere Fachbereiche |
DDC-Klassifikation: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |