Weather Derivatives: Concept & Application for Their Use in South Africa
Weather derivatives: Concept & application for their use in South Africa Geyser, J.M. Working paper: 2004-03 Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development University of Pretoria Pretoria, 0002 South Africa WEATHER DERIVATIVES: CONCEPT AND APPLICATION FOR THEIR USE IN SOUTH AFRICA - JM Geyser Recent innovations in energy markets suggest the possibility of addressing agricultural risk factors by issuing derivatives on weather elements. Such instruments appear particularly attractive, as asymmetric information and loss adjustment issues do not affect them. The paper first describes the concept, functioning and application of weather derivatives. It then examines the feasibility of rainfall derivatives to manage agricultural production risk in South Africa (SA) by evaluating the merits of rainfall options, and suggesting an option strategy, as a yield risk management tool. The use of rainfall derivatives in SA is likely to increase in future as capital markets, financial institutions, insurance companies, crop insurance companies and hedge funds collectively organize themselves to share and distribute weather risks. 1. INTRODUCTION Weather risk markets are amongst the newest and most dynamic markets for financial risk transfers and include participants from a broad range of economic sectors such as energy, insurance, banking, agriculture, leisure and entertainment. Although the weather risk market is till very much based in the United States (US), new participants from Europe, Asia and Latin America are entering this market. Although weather risk markets are well advanced in the energy sector, their applications to agriculture are still limited. For one, this type of market is very new and secondly they have to compete with highly subsidized crop insurance schemes in developed countries (Varangis, 2002).
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