Food Price Volatility and Its Implications for Food Security and Policy
Food Price Volatility and Its Implications for Food Security and Policy

Author: Matthias Kalkuhl

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 3319282018

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This book provides fresh insights into concepts, methods and new research findings on the causes of excessive food price volatility. It also discusses the implications for food security and policy responses to mitigate excessive volatility. The approaches applied by the contributors range from on-the-ground surveys, to panel econometrics and innovative high-frequency time series analysis as well as computational economics methods. It offers policy analysts and decision-makers guidance on dealing with extreme volatility.

The Economics of Food Price Volatility
The Economics of Food Price Volatility

Author: Jean-Paul Chavas

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-10-14

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 022612892X

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"The conference was organized by the three editors of this book and took place on August 15-16, 2012 in Seattle."--Preface.

Food trade policy and food price volatility
Food trade policy and food price volatility

Author: Martin, Will

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2024-05-13

Total Pages: 54

ISBN-13:

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Food trade barriers in many countries are systematically adjusted to insulate domestic markets from world price changes—a response not predicted by traditional political economy models. In this study, policymakers are assumed to minimize the political costs associated with changing domestic prices and deviating from longer-run political-economy equilibria. Error correction techniques applied to domestic and world price data for rice and wheat collected to measure trade policy distortions allow estimation of policy response parameters. The results suggest that systematic short-run price insulation reduces shocks to domestic prices but sharply increases world price volatility and the costs of trade distortions. However, idiosyncratic domestic price shocks resulting from inefficient policy instruments such as quantitative restrictions increase domestic price volatility relative to the magnified volatility of world prices—frequently outweighing the stabilizing impacts of price insulation. This fundamentally changes our understanding of the impacts of price-insulation—from a zero-sum game where some countries reduce the volatility of their prices using beggar-thy-neighbor policies that raise price volatility elsewhere, into one where price volatility rises in most countries. National policy reforms to move away from discretionary, destabilizing policies could lower costs, reduce volatility in domestic and world prices, and facilitate reform of international trade rules.

Trade Policy and Food Security
Trade Policy and Food Security

Author: Ian Gillson

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2014-12-04

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1464803064

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Increased trade integration holds considerable potential to stabilize food prices, boost returns to farmers, and reduce the prices faced by consumers. This book explores the effects of food price changes on economic welfare in developing countries, and how these can be mitigated through appropriate national policies at the border.

The Intersection of Trade Policy, Price Volatility, and Food Security
The Intersection of Trade Policy, Price Volatility, and Food Security

Author: Kym Anderson

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The volatility of food prices has always concerned national governments, especially those of open developing economies, as it undermines their perceived national food security. A common policy approach has been to partially insulate their domestic market from international food price fluctuations by varying restrictions on their imports or exports. Unfortunately, such domestic stabilization measures amplify international price fluctuations. This article explains conceptually, and illustrates empirically, how insulation measures do little to advance national food security and collectively imperil global food security. Many countries also intervene to alter the trend level of domestic farm product prices, again most commonly with the use of trade restrictions. The latter policies have the unintended consequence of thinning international food markets, adding to their volatility. The article concludes by pointing to alternative ways for governments to boost food security for vulnerable households; such alternatives have become far more feasible in recent times, thanks to the information and communication technology revolution.

The Economics of Food Price Volatility
The Economics of Food Price Volatility

Author: Jean-Paul Chavas

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 022612908X

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There has been an increase in food price instability in recent years, with varied consequences for farmers, market participants, and consumers. Before policy makers can design schemes to reduce food price uncertainty or ameliorate its effects, they must first understand the factors that have contributed to recent price instability. Does it arise primarily from technological or weather-related supply shocks, or from changes in demand like those induced by the growing use of biofuel? Does financial speculation affect food price volatility? The researchers who contributed to The Economics of Food Price Volatility address these and other questions. They examine the forces driving both recent and historical patterns in food price volatility, as well as the effects of various public policies in affecting this volatility. The chapters include studies of the links between food and energy markets, the impact of biofuel policy on the level and variability of food prices, and the effects of weather-related disruptions in supply. The findings shed light on the way price volatility affects the welfare of farmers, traders, and consumers.

Safeguarding Food Security in Volatile Global Markets
Safeguarding Food Security in Volatile Global Markets

Author: Adam Prakash

Publisher: Bright Sparks

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13:

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A timely publication as world leaders deliberate the causes of the latest bouts of food price volatility and search for solutions that address the recent velocity of financial, economic, political, demographic, and climatic change. As a collection compiled from a diverse group of economists, analysts, traders, institutions and policy formulators - comprising multiple methodologies and viewpoints - the book exposes the impact of volatility on global food security, with particular focus on the world's most vulnerable.

Global Uncertainty and the Volatility of Agricultural Commodities Prices
Global Uncertainty and the Volatility of Agricultural Commodities Prices

Author: B.R. Munier

Publisher: IOS Press

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1614990379

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The recent global financial crisis exposed the serious limitations of existing economic and financial models. Not only did macro models fail to predict the crisis, they seemed incapable of explaining what was happening to the economy. Policymakers felt abandoned by the conventional tools of the now obsolete Washington consensus and the World Trade Organization’s oversimplified faith in free markets.The traditional models for agricultural commodities have so far failed to take into account the uncertain character of the global agricultural economy and its ferocious consequences in food price volatility, the worst in 300 years, yielding hunger riots throughout the world. This book explores the elements which could help to close this fundamental modeling gap. To what extent should traditional models be questioned regarding agricultural commodities? Are prices on these markets foreseeable? Can their evolution be either predicted or convincingly simulated, and if so, by which methods and models? Presenting contributions from acknowledged experts from several countries and backgrounds – professors at major international universities or researchers within specialized international organizations – the book concentrates on four issues: the role of expectations and capacity of prediction; policy issues related to development strategies and food security; the role of hoarding and speculation and finally, global modeling methods. The book offers a renewed wisdom on some of the core issues in the world economy today and puts forward important innovations in analyzing these core issues, among which the modular modeling design, the Momagri model being a seminal example of it. Reading this book should inspire fruitful revisions in policy-making to improve the welfare of populations worldwide.

Documentation for the COVID-19 food trade policy tracker: Tracking government responses affecting global food markets during the COVID-19 crisis
Documentation for the COVID-19 food trade policy tracker: Tracking government responses affecting global food markets during the COVID-19 crisis

Author: Laborde Debucquet, David

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2020-05-01

Total Pages: 16

ISBN-13:

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In response to the COVID-19 crisis, some governments have implemented export restrictions and other trade policy measures to secure their food supply. This behavior can increase global food prices, with consequences including the exacerbation of hunger and income losses for producers in export-restrict-ing countries. Intergovernmental organizations and other actors need current information on food trade policy to curb detrimental reactive policy and enable cooperation. To address this need, we provide the COVID-19 Food Trade Policy Tracker. Gathering data from sources including the media, national gov-ernments, expert input, the OECD, and the IMF, we provide up-to-date information on food trade poli-cies implemented during the COVID-19 crisis and the likely magnitude of their effects.

Implications of Food Subsistence for Monetary Policy and Inflation
Implications of Food Subsistence for Monetary Policy and Inflation

Author: Rafael Portillo

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2016-03-17

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 1475515162

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We introduce subsistence requirements in food consumption into a simple new-Keynesian model with flexible food and sticky non-food prices. We study how the endogenous structural transformation that results from subsistence affects the dynamics of the economy, the design of monetary policy, and the properties of inflation at different levels of development. A calibrated version of the model encompasses both rich and poor countries and broadly replicates the properties of inflation across the development spectrum, including the dominant role played by changes in the relative price of food in poor countries. We derive a welfare-based loss function for the monetary authority and show that optimal policy calls for complete (in some cases nearcomplete) stabilization of sticky-price non-food inflation, despite the presence of a foodsubsistence threshold. Subsistence amplifies the welfare losses of policy mistakes, however, raising the stakes for monetary policy at earlier stages of development.