Patrick S Ward
Biographic Data
| ID | 1405345 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Patrick S Ward |
| GIVEN NAMES | Patrick S |
| FAMILY NAME | Ward |
| SIGNATURE | WARD P S |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8793-1200 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Cooperation and the management of local common resources in remote rural communities
It is widely recognized that local management of common pool resources can be more efficient and more effective than private markets or top-down government management, especially in remote rural communities in which the institutions may be weak or prone to elite capture. In this paper, we explore the propensity for cooperation in the management of local common resources by introducing a variant of a public goods game among remote rural communitie…
Evaluating the Gendered Credit Constraints and Uptake of an Insurance-Linked Credit Product Among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya
Using data from a multi-arm experiment among maize and bean smallholder farmers in Kenya, we evaluate the gender differences in credit rationing, and whether an insurance-bundled credit product, known as risk-contingent credit (RCC) could enhance credit access for both men and women. Using 3 years of household survey data, we find that female-headed households are significantly more risk-rationed (or demand-side rationed) than men. Post-intervent…
Experimental evidence on cooperation and coordination in forest and endangered species conservation in China
The growing prevalence of livestock as an alternative or complementary livelihood strategy has become a growing threat to wildlife and forest ecosystems in China. To achieve the dual objectives of biodiversity conservation and rural development requires cooperation and coordination from local communities. However, relatively little is known about the prevalence of these social attitudes in rural China, nor the extent to which cooperation and coor…
How high frequency food diaries can transform understanding of food security
Globally, around 2 billion people are affected by moderate to severe food insecurity. The linkages from food security through to environmental sustainability are well established, but not yet well measured. This is a critical gap, as it hampers our understanding of how environmental shocks carry through to become consumption shocks to households, communities, or regions; how responses to these shocks (e.g., dietary substitutions) feed back into f…
Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk
Innovations that mitigate weather-related production risks can potentially benefit farmers in risk-prone areas. We examine two distinct tools for managing drought risk: (1) weather index insurance and (2) a drought-tolerant (DT) rice variety. Although these tools can independently address drought risk, we demonstrate the additional benefits gained by bundling them into a complementary product. Results suggest that farmers are generally unwilling …
Evaluating producer preferences and information processing strategies for drought risk management tools in Bangladesh
We use stated preference data to study farmers' preferences for two alternative strategies to manage drought risks in Bangladesh. A choice experiment on drought tolerant rice varieties and weather index insurance was administered to 2306 farmers. Two overarching preference classes or meso-groups were identified using an equality constrained latent class model, each containing various patterns of attribute non-attendance. Our analysis finds that f…
What is the intrinsic value of fertilizer? Experimental value elicitation and decomposition in the hill and terai regions of Nepal
Assessing recall bias and measurement error in high-frequency social data collection for human-environment research
A major impediment to understanding human-environment interactions is that data on social systems are not collected in a way that is easily comparable to natural systems data. While many environmental variables are collected with high frequency, gridded in time and space, social data is typically conducted irregularly, in waves that are far apart in time. These efforts typically engage respondents for hours at a time, and suffer from decay in par…
Can differences in individual learning explain patterns of technology adoption? Evidence on heterogeneous learning patterns and hybrid rice adoption in Bihar, India
Much empirical research that has shown that an individual's decision to adopt a new technology is the result of learning - both in personal experimentation as well as observing the experimentation of others. Yet even casual observation would suggest significant heterogeneity learning processes, manifesting itself in widely varying patterns of adoption over space and time. In this paper we explore this heterogeneity in the context of early adoptio…
New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture
Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought…
Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insuran…
Early adoption of conservation agriculture practices
Disaster risk, social vulnerability, and economic development
This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate-related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally-occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT),representing country-ye…
Increased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system
Conventional wisdom in many agricultural systems across the world is that farmers cannot, will not, or should not pay the full costs associated with surface water delivery. Across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, only a handful can claim complete recovery of operation, maintenance, and capital costs; across Central and South Asia, fees are lower still, with farmers in Nepal, India, and Kazakhstan paying fra…
Using Field Experiments to Elicit Risk and Ambiguity Preferences
We conduct a series of experiments in rural India in order to measure preferences related to risk, loss, and ambiguity. By combining these results with a discrete choice experiment over new and familiar rice seeds, we demonstrate how these behavioural parameters affect decisions to adopt new agricultural technologies, especially when the new technologies are risk reducing. We find that risk averse and loss averse individuals are more likely to sw…
Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty
Heterogeneous Demand for Drought-Tolerant Rice
On the use of tradable development rights for reducing flood risk
Vulnerability, Income Growth and Climate Change
Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty
Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insuran…
Heterogeneous Demand for Drought-Tolerant Rice
Disaster risk, social vulnerability, and economic development
This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate-related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally-occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT),representing country-ye…
Vulnerability, Income Growth and Climate Change
Early adoption of conservation agriculture practices
Assessing recall bias and measurement error in high-frequency social data collection for human-environment research
A major impediment to understanding human-environment interactions is that data on social systems are not collected in a way that is easily comparable to natural systems data. While many environmental variables are collected with high frequency, gridded in time and space, social data is typically conducted irregularly, in waves that are far apart in time. These efforts typically engage respondents for hours at a time, and suffer from decay in par…
New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture
Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought…
On the use of tradable development rights for reducing flood risk
Increased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system
Conventional wisdom in many agricultural systems across the world is that farmers cannot, will not, or should not pay the full costs associated with surface water delivery. Across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, only a handful can claim complete recovery of operation, maintenance, and capital costs; across Central and South Asia, fees are lower still, with farmers in Nepal, India, and Kazakhstan paying fra…
Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk
Innovations that mitigate weather-related production risks can potentially benefit farmers in risk-prone areas. We examine two distinct tools for managing drought risk: (1) weather index insurance and (2) a drought-tolerant (DT) rice variety. Although these tools can independently address drought risk, we demonstrate the additional benefits gained by bundling them into a complementary product. Results suggest that farmers are generally unwilling …
Can differences in individual learning explain patterns of technology adoption? Evidence on heterogeneous learning patterns and hybrid rice adoption in Bihar, India
Much empirical research that has shown that an individual's decision to adopt a new technology is the result of learning - both in personal experimentation as well as observing the experimentation of others. Yet even casual observation would suggest significant heterogeneity learning processes, manifesting itself in widely varying patterns of adoption over space and time. In this paper we explore this heterogeneity in the context of early adoptio…
Vulnerability, Income Growth and Climate Change
On the use of tradable development rights for reducing flood risk
Heterogeneous Demand for Drought-Tolerant Rice
Using Field Experiments to Elicit Risk and Ambiguity Preferences
We conduct a series of experiments in rural India in order to measure preferences related to risk, loss, and ambiguity. By combining these results with a discrete choice experiment over new and familiar rice seeds, we demonstrate how these behavioural parameters affect decisions to adopt new agricultural technologies, especially when the new technologies are risk reducing. We find that risk averse and loss averse individuals are more likely to sw…
Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty
Increased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system
Conventional wisdom in many agricultural systems across the world is that farmers cannot, will not, or should not pay the full costs associated with surface water delivery. Across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, only a handful can claim complete recovery of operation, maintenance, and capital costs; across Central and South Asia, fees are lower still, with farmers in Nepal, India, and Kazakhstan paying fra…
Disaster risk, social vulnerability, and economic development
This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate-related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally-occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT),representing country-ye…
Can differences in individual learning explain patterns of technology adoption? Evidence on heterogeneous learning patterns and hybrid rice adoption in Bihar, India
Much empirical research that has shown that an individual's decision to adopt a new technology is the result of learning - both in personal experimentation as well as observing the experimentation of others. Yet even casual observation would suggest significant heterogeneity learning processes, manifesting itself in widely varying patterns of adoption over space and time. In this paper we explore this heterogeneity in the context of early adoptio…
New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture
Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought…
Ex ante and ex post effects of hybrid index insurance in Bangladesh
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insuran…
Early adoption of conservation agriculture practices
Evaluating producer preferences and information processing strategies for drought risk management tools in Bangladesh
We use stated preference data to study farmers' preferences for two alternative strategies to manage drought risks in Bangladesh. A choice experiment on drought tolerant rice varieties and weather index insurance was administered to 2306 farmers. Two overarching preference classes or meso-groups were identified using an equality constrained latent class model, each containing various patterns of attribute non-attendance. Our analysis finds that f…
What is the intrinsic value of fertilizer? Experimental value elicitation and decomposition in the hill and terai regions of Nepal
Assessing recall bias and measurement error in high-frequency social data collection for human-environment research
A major impediment to understanding human-environment interactions is that data on social systems are not collected in a way that is easily comparable to natural systems data. While many environmental variables are collected with high frequency, gridded in time and space, social data is typically conducted irregularly, in waves that are far apart in time. These efforts typically engage respondents for hours at a time, and suffer from decay in par…
Demand for Complementary Financial and Technological Tools for Managing Drought Risk
Innovations that mitigate weather-related production risks can potentially benefit farmers in risk-prone areas. We examine two distinct tools for managing drought risk: (1) weather index insurance and (2) a drought-tolerant (DT) rice variety. Although these tools can independently address drought risk, we demonstrate the additional benefits gained by bundling them into a complementary product. Results suggest that farmers are generally unwilling …
How high frequency food diaries can transform understanding of food security
Globally, around 2 billion people are affected by moderate to severe food insecurity. The linkages from food security through to environmental sustainability are well established, but not yet well measured. This is a critical gap, as it hampers our understanding of how environmental shocks carry through to become consumption shocks to households, communities, or regions; how responses to these shocks (e.g., dietary substitutions) feed back into f…
Experimental evidence on cooperation and coordination in forest and endangered species conservation in China
The growing prevalence of livestock as an alternative or complementary livelihood strategy has become a growing threat to wildlife and forest ecosystems in China. To achieve the dual objectives of biodiversity conservation and rural development requires cooperation and coordination from local communities. However, relatively little is known about the prevalence of these social attitudes in rural China, nor the extent to which cooperation and coor…
Cooperation and the management of local common resources in remote rural communities
It is widely recognized that local management of common pool resources can be more efficient and more effective than private markets or top-down government management, especially in remote rural communities in which the institutions may be weak or prone to elite capture. In this paper, we explore the propensity for cooperation in the management of local common resources by introducing a variant of a public goods game among remote rural communitie…
Evaluating the Gendered Credit Constraints and Uptake of an Insurance-Linked Credit Product Among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya
Using data from a multi-arm experiment among maize and bean smallholder farmers in Kenya, we evaluate the gender differences in credit rationing, and whether an insurance-bundled credit product, known as risk-contingent credit (RCC) could enhance credit access for both men and women. Using 3 years of household survey data, we find that female-headed households are significantly more risk-rationed (or demand-side rationed) than men. Post-intervent…
Economics (16 works) · Geography (12 works) · Agricultural risk and resilience (11 works) · Business (11 works) · Agriculture (9 works) · Agricultural economics (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Natural resource economics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Agricultural Innovations and Practices (5 works)