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.
Since the financial and food price crises of 2007, market instability has been a topic of major concern to agricultural economists and policy professionals. This volume provides an overview of the key issues surrounding food prices volatility, focusing primarily on drivers, long-term implications of volatility and its impacts on food chains and consumers. The book explores which factors and drivers are volatility-increasing and which others are price level-increasing, and whether these two distinctive effects can be identified and measured. It considers the extent to which increasing instability affects agents in the value chain, as well as the actual impacts on the most vulnerable households in the EU and in selected developing countries. It also analyses which policies are more effective to avert and mitigate the effects of instability. Developed from the work of the European-based ULYSSES project, the book synthesises the most recent literature on the topic and presents the views of practitioners, businesses, NGOs and farmers' organizations. It draws policy responses and recommendations for policy makers at both European and on international levels.
This textbook addresses the main economic principles required by agricultural economists involved in rural development. The principles of 'micro-economics' or 'price-theory' are of relevance to economists everywhere, but this book reinforces the message of their relevance for rural development by explaining the theory in the specific context of the agricultural and food sectors of developing countries. Hypothetical and actual empirical illustrations drawn almost exclusively from such countries distinguish this book from other economic principles texts that draw their examples almost invariably from industrialised countries, and also from books more oriented to the issue of rural development. The first half of the book deals with the underlying principles of production, supply and demand. These are essential tools for the study and management of the agricultural sector and food markets. In the second half, supply and demand are bought together into a chapter of equilibrium and exchange. This is followed by chapters on trade and the theory of economic welfare. In the final chapter it is shown that much of the material in the earlier chapters can be combined by agricultural economists into a system for analysing and comparing the effects of alternative agricultural policies. The ability of agricultural economics to provide a consistent framework for the analysis of policy problems thus enables it to make a key contribution to rural development.
We compile a historical dataset covering nearly 40 years of booms and busts in the commodity terms of trade of over 150 countries. We discuss the characteristics of these events and their effects on macroeconomic performance and, in particular, compare the most recent commodity-price cycle with its historical precedents.
This Handbook provides the first comprehensive review and synthesis of knowledge and new thinking on how food and food systems can be thought, interpreted and practiced around the old/new paradigms of commons and commoning. The overall aim is to investigate the multiple constraints that occur within and sustain the dominant food and nutrition regime and to explore how it can change when different elements of the current food systems are explored and re-imagined from a commons perspective. The book sparks the debate on food as a commons between and within disciplines, with particular attention to spaces of resistance (food sovereignty, de-growth, open knowledge, transition town, occupations, bottom-up social innovations) and organizational scales (local food, national policies, South–South collaborations, international governance and multi-national agreements). Overall, it shows the consequences of a shift to the alternative paradigm of food as a commons in terms of food, the planet and living beings. Chapters 1 and 24 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.
This festschrift volume presents discussions on contemporary issues in international economics and finance. It is aimed to serve as a reference material for researchers. There are two broad sections of the book -- International Macroeconomics and International Finance. The chapters in the International Macroeconomics section discuss critical topics like aggregate level macro model for India with a new Keynesian perspective, balance of payments, service sector exports, foreign exchange constraints for import demands, foreign direct investment and knowledge spill over, the relationship between forex rate fluctuation and investment, Institutional quality-trade openness-economic growth nexus, currency crises and debt-deficit relationship in the BRICS countries in the backdrop of COVID-19. Apart from these, various analytical issues related to macroeconomic policies are also covered in this section. The topics discussed includes the nature of forex market interventions, the issue of disinvestment and privatization, changing nature of fiscal policy, the inflation-growth nexus, macroeconomic simulation modelling, measuring core inflation, central bank credibility, monetary policy, inflation targeting, Infrastructure, trade, unemployment and inequality nexus. In the International Finance section, topics such as COVID-19 induced financial crisis, commodity futures volatility, stock market connectivity, volatility persistence, determinants of sovereign bond yields, FII and stock market volatility, cryptocurrency price formation, financialization of Indian commodity market, and a Keynesian view of the financial crisis are discussed. Overall, thirty two chapters in the volume discuss cutting edge research in the areas of the two sections. A tour de force... a lucid guide to some of the diverse and complex issues in International Macroeconomics and Finance. This collection of scholarly works is a fitting tribute to respected Prof. Bandi Kamaiah and his enviable academic contributions. - Prof. Y V Reddy, Former Governor, Reserve Bank of India This volume comprising thoughtful essays by our leading scholars on some of important policy issues that India is facing is indeed a rich tribute to Professor Bandi Kamaiah . This book will greatly benefit the academic community as well as our policy makers. - Prof. Vijay Kelkar, Chairman, 13th Finance Commission of India; Chairman, India Development Foundation, Mumbai, India Noted economists from India and abroad gather to apply the rigorous searchlight that Professor Bandi Kamaiah used so effectively in his career. Major current topics in macroeconomics and international finance are effectively explored in the volume. - Prof. Ashima Goyal, Emeritus Professor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India; and Member, Monetary Policy Committee of Reserve Bank of India This volume of 32 papers in macroeconomics, international economics, and international finance is intended as a tribute to the eminent econometrician , Prof B Kamaiah. Post-graduate students and researchers will find much valuable literature in the volume, which is a fitting tribute to Prof Kamaiah. The editors and authors deserve rich compliments. - Prof. K L Krishna, Former Director, Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi, India I am so happy to hear that Dr. Kamaiah's colleagues and ex-students are bringing out a special volume of articles in his honor. Nothing can be more appropriate. Dr. Kamaiah, being a man of tremendous publications, deserves this tribute. I wish all the luck and success to the new book. - Prof. Kishore Kulkarni, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA
