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创建，有可能改变发展中国家超过10亿迄今未投保的低收入个人承担风险的方式。该项目将调查这一新型保险的购买者的可能结果，既包括其支持者所说的--减少脆弱性和生计保护--也包括那些未陈述的结果，如增加风险承担。鉴于对Wii的研究还处于早期阶段，几乎没有深入的长期案例研究，该项目将使研究人员不仅能够塑造社会科学家对Wii的理解方式，还将影响此类保险的设计和部署方式。该项目加剧了有关保险在全球资本主义中的作用的辩论。虽然这很难在大规模的城市或企业中解决，但该项目对个人的关注使我们能够分析新引入的金融化风险管理的意图和结果。研究人员将回答两个广泛的问题：1)非营利组织和营利性组织创建Wii的动机和想法是什么？2)Wii对低收入个人的生计选择、风险分担机制和脆弱性有什么影响？鉴于Wii在发展中国家的注册人数将大幅增加，研究设计将聚焦于特定地区的一款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采用新金融产品来管理气候变化影响的国家。这个项目将连接两个关于金融和脆弱性的关键文献：在关于Wii的经济学文献中，几乎没有批判性的参与方式，即空间被视为对所有投保人统一的方式。相比之下，有关脆弱性在不同个体之间如何变化的文献，并未将金融作为一种适应能力进行深入探讨。为了回答研究问题，调查人员将对包括Wii购买者和非购买者在内的四个生计群体的个人进行访谈。与参与者的面谈将进行两次，因此可以评估由于采用Wii而产生的随时间变化的情况。研究人员还将采访对Wii的设计或销售做出贡献的金融专家，以了解Wii创造背后的动机。研究结果将与圣卢西亚的生计组织分享，他们将有兴趣了解Wii对其成员脆弱性的复杂影响，并与政府部委分享，后者需要了解Wii的采用如何与国家管理的现有风险管理战略相互作用。

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.