Government subsidized crop insurance has been used by a number of developed countries as a mechanism to reduce farm income instability by reducing yield risks. This book provides an in-depth analysis and evaluation of government provided crop insurance in developed countries. The book is organized into three sections: Part one presents background material on crop insurance programs in the U.S., Canada and selected other countries. Part two provides some analytical models of multiple peril crop insurance which suggest the possibility of modification of design which could improve performance and which explores theoretical linkages between crop insurance decisions and other producer decisions previously not analyzed. The main part of the book is Part three, where the results of a series of empirical studies using databases particularly designed to answer crop insurance questions are presented. This part of the book tests a number of the hypotheses which were raised in Parts one and two regarding reasons for the view widely held by economists that crop insurance has not functioned well.

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1 Introduction and Overview.- I Historical Perspectives and Overall Performance.- 2 Crop Insurance in U. S. Farm Policy.- 3 An Aggregate Analysis of Canadian Crop Insurance Policy.- 4 All-Risk Crop Insurance: Lessons From Theory and Experience.- II Conceptual Issues.- 5 The Optimal Design of Crop Insurance.- 6 Agricultural Insurance, Production and the Environment.- 7 Crop Insurance in the Context of Canadian and U.S. Farm Programs.- III Applications and Policy Studies.- 8 An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Participation in Crop Insurance.- 9 Crop Insurance and Crop Production: An Empirical Study of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection.- 10 Crop Insurance Decisions and Financial Characteristics of Farms.- 11 Risk Reduction from Diversification and Crop Insurance in Saskatchewan.- 12 Crop Insurance and Agricultural Chemical Use.- 13 Land Use Issues-Crop Insurance: Its Influence on Land and Input Use Decisions in Saskatchewan.- 14 Providing Catastrophic Yield Protection Through a Targeted Revenue Program.- Author Index.