Conference Agenda

We study stated and realized demand for a parametric rainfall insurance product among rice-farming households in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Our database is a new household survey conducted among 3,000 rice-farming households. Eliciting willingness-to-pay (WTP), we find that survey respondents express a substantial stated demand for protection against excessive rainfall. Thirty-three and 18 percent report a WTP of at least half the market price and the market price, respectively. However, when subsequently offered the same product by insurance agents at a subsidized price below the respondent’s stated WTP, none of the survey respondents purchased insurance. We analyze determinants of stated demand and discuss potential explanations for the gap between stated and realized demand.

I use an online experiment to study whether offering information to floodplain residents is sufficient to change their perceived risk exposure and demand for insurance. Participants are offered information on the flood risk profile at their address and on the national rules over compensation of flood damages. I find that respondents tend to misperceive their risk category according to publicly available flood maps, but express high levels of confidence in their guesses. When not prompted to engage with the information they are offered, one third of them read nothing. When prompted to read information on their risk profile, respondents —particularly residents of high risk areas— tend to stop reading any further and report a lower willingness-to-pay for insurance, but do not update their beliefs differently on average. Spontaneous comments from participants suggest backlash to information emphasizing personal responsibility, concern over their house losing value, distrust towards information from government and media, and aversion to insurance companies.

Insurance coverage provides little incentive for households to adapt their dwellings to the natural risks they face. This paper studies the housing market impacts of regulations tha limit development in at-risk areas and mandate protective building codes. Using a novel national dataset, I exploit variation in the timing and spatial scope of policy implementation and interpret the estimates within a simple framework that combines risk capitalization and land use regulation effects. Risk zoning effectively limits exposure without increasing prices at the local level, even when households do not significantly discount hazard exposure. Capitalization patterns are highly heterogeneous across risk types, suggesting large differences in perceived change in exposure.

A fundamental question for policymakers is whether communication can serve as an effective policy instrument. This paper examines France's energy crisis of 2022, during which surging prices prompted one of Europe's largest conservation campaigns. The present study investigates the relationship between official messaging, public attention and electricity demand. The analysis of the causal chain reveals that the effectiveness of communication depends on two factors: message framing and household flexibility. The findings indicate that information campaigns have the capacity to augment existing demand-side flexibility rather than creating it, thereby constraining their effectiveness as a standalone policy instrument.