Commodity price instability and economic goal attainment in developing countries

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical micro and macro foundations for the frequent claims that instabilities in international commodity markets have deleterious effects on goal attainment in primary-commodity exporting developing countries. This review leads to the conclusion that the available evidence does not support these claims. The paper concludes with speculation on why such claims are so strong despite the lack of supporting evidence: perhaps it is because of measurement problems and perhaps because of small but articulate groups with vested interests in overstating the problem.