Peer Effects On Farmers’ Purchases Of Policy-based Planting Farming Agricultural Insurance

As a large agricultural country with wide territory and complex terrain,China has frequently suffered various meteorological disasters and natural disasters under the influence of the global environment,so the affected agricultural production has been suffering a wide range and huge losses.These difficulties and challenges have seriously hindered the sustainable development of China’s agriculture and the realization of rural revitalization.Since 2007,in order to reduce the loss of agricultural production,China’s Central Ministry of Finance,in conjunction with the Ministry of Rural Revitalization and other departments,has implemented the premium subsidy policy of policy-oriented agricultural insurance in accordance with the principle of "Government-guidance,Market-operation,Famers-voluntary and Coordination ".However,since promotion,China’s policy-based agricultural insurance has been in a dilemma known as "Cold Winter of Supply and Demand".In the academic community,research on policy based agricultural insurance for crop cultivation has been conducted from multiple aspects,including personal and family characteristics,farmers’ perception of meteorological disasters,and local government financial expenditures.At present,the herd tendency and learning imitation effect brought by the peer effects have become the new influencing factors that affect farmers’ purchase of agricultural insurance,but research in this area is still in the exploratory stage.Therefore,based on the field survey data carried out by the research group in Sichuan Province of China in 2021,this study systematically reveals the correlation between the peer effects and the behavior of farmers to purchase policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance and the specific function mechanism by using the methods of binary Logit regression,PSM model and intermediary effect model.The results show that:(1)Whether the family and friends of farmers have New Year greetings with farmers or not,their purchase behavior will positively and significantly affect farmers.(2)The influence of the peer effects on the purchase behavior of farmers is related to the strength of the relationship,so there is a "circle effect",which is embodied in that the influence of relatives and friends is greater than that of relatives and friends with and without New Year greetings.(3)The result of mechanism analysis shows that the influence of peer effects on farmers’ behavior of purchasing policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance will be significantly weakened after passing through social network and trust intermediary variables respectively.(4)The heterogeneity analysis shows that under the impact of the peer effects,famers who manage the larger the scale of land or own the higher the education background are more willing to buy policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance.Based on the empirical results,this study emphasizes the importance of the peer effects on farmers’ behavior of purchasing policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance.And this study discusses how to use the peer effects to better promote famers to buy policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance from the five aspects,including the country,insurance institutions,local governments,farmers themselves and the promotion and application of policy-based planting farming agricultural insurance.It provides empirical support for the government to better promote policy-based agricultural insurance,and promotes the continuous upgrading of China’s policy-based agricultural insurance products and services,So as to put forward reasonable policy suggestions for the rapid development of China’s policy-based agricultural insurance,and contribute to China’s modern agricultural development and food security,and realize rural revitalization as soon as possible.