Sommarat Chantarat
| Degree | Ph.D |
| Area of Interest | Risk Management, Agricultural Finance, Social Network, Poverty Dynamics |
| Chair | Chris Barrett |
| Country of Origin | Thailand |
| Email Address | sc384@cornell.edu |
| Campus Address | 469 Uris Hall |
| Personal Website | http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/sc384 |
Sommarat is a Ph.D. candidate at the department of Economics at Cornell. Her research interest spans the issues of poverty traps, risk, development finance, and systems and innovations that crowd in the (missing) credit and insurance markets in poor economy.
Among her extensive research works at Cornell, Sommarat studies roles of social network capital in facilitating and/or impeding poor’s economic mobility and escape from poverty traps.
Her current research tackles the design and development of “index based risk transfer products” as a means to reduce poverty and vulnerability among poor populations. She is a graduate fellow joining a research team at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya, which involves in introducing and conducting a feasibility study of index based livestock insurance in pastoral areas of Northern Kenya. She led the fieldwork that studied optimal insurance contract designs and the willingness to pay for insurance among pastoralists in Marsabit, one of Northern Kenya’s most arid pastoral districts.
Introduction of her current works with ILRI and Chris Barrett in Northern Kenya can be found in the recent presentation: Designing and Investigating Demand for Index Based Livestock Insurance in Northern Kenya presented at the International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, August 2008.
Sommarat is a native Thai. She has a B.A. in Economics from Thammasat University, Thailand. Before joining Cornell Economics, Sommarat has an M. Phil. in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an M.Sc. in Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago. Outside school, Sommarat is passionate about tennis, outdoor sports, culinary arts and traveling.