eight _woredas_ of Borana zone in our sample. Inaccessible _reeras_ were excluded for logistical reasons. In each _reera_ , households were grouped into three livestock holding classes (high, medium and low), measured in tropical livestock units (TLU).<sup>8</sup> Fifteen percent of households were randomly selected in each _reera_ such that a minimum of 25 households were selected with a balanced representation of the three TLU classes (terciles). In the event 15 percent of households in a _reera_ yields less than 25 households, neighboring _reeras_ were combined to form a bigger study site, resulting in a total of 17 study sites (ILRI, 2014).

The baseline sample included 515 households. In R2, 476 of the original (baseline) households were re-interviewed. Households that had dropped out were replaced by households from the same study site and TLU class. If replacements could not be found in the same TLU class, households in the adjacent TLU class were picked. Thus, 32 new replacement households were surveyed from the original population lists for a total of 508 households in R2. In R3, 500 R2 households and 14 replacement households were surveyed. In selecting replacements in R3 priority was given to original households (those sampled in R1 but missed in R2). Of the 14 R3 replacements, 10 were original households and 4 were new households.

Seven households had missing SWB measures or key independent variables and were dropped from the sample. The final estimation sample includes 550 unique households and 1,530 observations (515 in R1, 504 in R2 and 511 in R3), of which 465 households were surveyed in all three rounds, 50 households were surveyed in two rounds (8 in R1 and R2, 12 in R1 and R3, and 30 in R2 and R3), and 35 households were surveyed only once. A detailed treatment of potential attrition bias in the data and relevant corrections is presented in the Appendix.

To encourage IBLI uptake, various combinations of premium discount coupons and information interventions through audio tapes of a poem or comic books were randomly implemented in each of IBLI sales period (Table 1). Information was delivered via caricature representation of IBLI in comic books or audio tapes of a poem about IBLI recited in the local language, Oromifa, to sub-samples of respondents in sales period 1 and 2.<sup>9</sup> The encouragement design in sales periods 3 and 4 did not include information intervention. All four sales

> 8TLU is a measure used to aggregate livestock across species in relation to a common average metabolic weight such that 1 TLU = 1 cattle = 0.7 camels = 10 goats or sheep, collectively called ‘shoats’.

> 9In the comic book information treatment, a randomly selected sub-sample of respondents was provided with a caricature representation of the IBLI product prepared by the underwriter, Oromia Insurance Company (OIC). The contents of the material were first read to the sample households, then they were encouraged to look/read through it as many times as they wished. In the audio tape information treatment, development agents (DAs) were asked to play a tape that explains IBLI in Oromifa to a randomly selected sub-sample of respondents (for more details on the information interventions see ILRI (2014).

8