Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Novel Weather Insurance on Livelihood Practices

天气指数保险（WII）作为一种低成本商品的诞生，有可能改变发展中国家超过10亿迄今未投保的低收入人群应对风险的方式。该项目将调查这种新型保险的购买者可能产生的结果，包括其支持者所陈述的结果（减少脆弱性和保护生计）和未陈述的结果（例如增加风险承担）。鉴于对WII的研究还处于早期阶段，缺乏深入的、长期的案例研究，该项目将使研究人员不仅能够塑造社会科学家理解WII的方式，而且还能影响这种保险的设计和部署方式。这个项目增加了关于保险在全球资本主义中的作用的争论。虽然这很难在城市或公司的大范围内解决，但该项目对个人的关注使得新引入的金融化风险管理的意图和结果得以分析。研究人员将回答两个广泛的问题：1)非盈利组织和营利性组织创造WII的动机和想法是什么？2) WII对低收入人群的生计选择、风险分担机制和脆弱性有何影响？考虑到发展中国家的WII注册人数将大幅增加，研究设计将侧重于特定地区的一种WII产品——圣卢西亚的生计保护政策——但研究结论将适用于其他正在采用新金融产品来管理气候变化影响的国家。本项目将连接两个关于金融和脆弱性的关键文献：在WII的经济学文献中，很少有关于空间被所有保单持有人统一对待的方式的批判性参与。相比之下，关于脆弱性在个体之间如何变化的文献并没有深入研究金融作为一种适应能力的形式。为了回答研究问题，调查人员将对四个生计群体的个人进行访谈，包括WII的购买者和非购买者。与参与者的访谈将进行两次，因此可以评估由于采用WII而随时间变化的情况。研究人员还将采访为WII的设计或销售做出贡献的金融专家，以了解WII开发背后的动机。研究结果将与圣卢西亚的生计团体分享，他们将有兴趣了解WII对其成员脆弱性的复杂影响，并与政府部门分享，政府部门将需要了解采用WII与国家管理的现有风险管理策略如何相互作用。

The creation of weather index insurance (WII) as a low-cost commodity has the potential to change the way that over a billion, hitherto uninsured, low-income individuals in the developing world engage with risk. This project will investigate the possible outcomes for the purchasers of this novel insurance, both those that are stated by its proponents -- vulnerability reduction and livelihood protection -- and those unstated, such as increased risk-taking. Given that research on WII is in its early stages, with few in-depth, long-term case studies, this project will allow the researchers to not only shape the way that social scientists understand WII, but also impact the way that such insurance is designed and deployed. This project adds to the debate on the role of insurance within global capitalism. While this is difficult to address on the large scale of cities or corporations, this project's focus on individuals allows the intents and outcomes of newly introduced financialized risk management to be analyzed. The researchers will answer two broad questions: 1) What are the motivations and ideas that have informed both non-profit and for-profit groups in creating WII? 2) What are the impacts of WII on the livelihood choices, risk-sharing mechanisms, and vulnerabilities of low-income individuals? Given the large expansion in WII enrolment that will take place across the developing world, the research design will focus on one WII product in a specific place -- the Livelihood Protection Policy in St. Lucia -- but the research conclusions will be applicable to other countries that are adopting new financial products to manage climate change effects. This project will bridge two key literatures on finance and vulnerability: in the economics literature on WII there is little critical engagement with the way that space is treated as uniform for all policyholders. In contrast, the literature on how vulnerabilities vary across individuals has not engaged deeply with finance as a form of adaptive capacity. In order to answer the research questions, the investigators will conduct interviews with individuals from four livelihood groups including both purchasers and non-purchasers of WII. Interviews with the participants will occur twice, so that change over time due to WII adoption may be assessed. The researchers will also interview financial experts who have contributed to the design or sale of WII in order to understand the motivations behind WII's creation. The findings will be shared with livelihoods groups in St. Lucia, where the research will take place, who will be interested in understanding the complex effects of WII on their members' vulnerability, and shared with government ministries, which will need to understand how the adoption of WII interacts with existing risk management strategies administered by the state.