Crop Insurance and Pesticides in French agriculture: an empirical analysis of multiple risks management

Raja Chakir (1) , Julien Hardelin (2)

1 ECO-PUB - Economie Publique
2 X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique

This paper investigates the determinants of rapeseed hail insurance and chemical input decisions using individual panel data set of French farms covering the period from 1993 to 2004. Economic theory suggests that insurance and prevention decisions are not independent due to risk reduction and/or moral hazard eff ects. We propose a theoretical framework that integrates two statistically independent sources of risk faced by farmers of our sample hail risk and pest risk. Statistical tests confi rm that chemical and insurance demands are endogenous to each other and simultaneously determined. An econometric model involving two simultaneous equations with mixed censored/continuous dependent variables is thus estimated for rapeseed. Estimation results show that rapeseed insurance demand has a positive and signi cant eff ect on pesticide use and vice versa. Insurance demand is also positively in uenced by the yield's coeffi cient of variation and the loss ratio, and negatively infl uenced by proxies for wealth (including CAP subsidies) and activity diversi cation.

Mots clés: Crop insurance; Pesticide use; Simultaneous equations.; Simultaneous equations

Domaines: Economies et finances

Raja Chakir, Julien Hardelin. Crop Insurance and Pesticides in French agriculture: an empirical analysis of multiple risks management. 2010. ⟨hal-00753733⟩