Evaluating Alternative Policy Responses to Higher World Food Prices: The Case of Increasing Rice Prices in Madagascar

Higher world food prices have led many developing countries to adopt policies to mitigate the impact on low-income households. This article sets out a partial equilibrium framework to evaluate the efficiency, distributional, and revenue implications of alternative policy responses. The model is applied to evaluate tariff reductions and targeted transfers in Madagascar. Although lowering tariffs generates substantial efficiency gains, these accrue mainly to the top half of the welfare distribution, and poor net sellers are actually worse off. Developing a system of targeted direct transfers to poor households is likely to be a substantially more cost-effective approach to poverty alleviation.     

World Commodity Prices and Domestic Retail Food Price Inflation: Some Insights from the UK

We focus on two aspects of the links between world commodity prices and retail food price inflation: first, the effects of exchange rates and other input costs, and second; the effects of the duration of shocks on world commodity markets, not just the magnitude of price spikes (the latter often commanding most attention). The UK offers a natural and rather unexplored setting for the analysis. Applying time series methods to a sample of 259 monthly observations over the 1990(9)–2012(3) period we find substantial and significant long‐term partial elasticities for domestic food price inflation with respect to world food commodity prices, the exchange rate and oil prices (the latter indirectly via a relationship with world food commodity prices). Domestic demand pressures and food chain costs are found to be less substantial and significant over our data period. Interactions between the main driving variables in the system tend to moderate rather than exacerbate these partial effects. Furthermore, the persistence of shocks to these variables markedly affects their effects on domestic food prices.     

世界农产品价格波动的新态势:动因和趋势探讨

本文探讨了引发近年世界农产品价格新态势的主要动因,分析了影响农产品价格波动的短期因素和决定其长期趋势的动因.促成近年农产品价格暴涨的主要因素是用粮食生产能源创造了新的需求;而跨国公司控制市场、国际基金参与和投机农产品贸易放大了新需求的影响,并造成了价格前所未有的的急剧波动.虽然决定价格趋势的世界农业生产潜力并没有改变,但农业生产资料价格的上涨拉动生产成本攀升,如果继续扩张用粮食生产能源,世界农产品价格长期下降的趋势将逆转并继续在高住上运行.中国作为世界最大的农产品生产国和消费国,夯实农业生产基础,防止城市无度扩张占用耕地,提倡节约粮食,尤其是在从收获到消费整个环节中减少浪费粮食,同时提高农业贸易的经济效率,是应对世界农产品价格趋高和急剧波动的基本对策.     

Supermarket Promotions and Food Prices: A Note

Using a sample comprising nearly 250,000 weekly prices from the largest seven UK supermarket chains, this note investigates two pricing practices that have attracted public interest: the tendency for promotions to ‘disguise’ rises in non‐sale prices and the inflation of prices prior to sales which ‘exaggerate’ the discount. Analysing price dynamics before and after periods of promotional discounting results show post‐sale prices are typically lower than pre‐sale prices, contrary to the disguise hypothesis. We do, however, find evidence of exaggeration of the discount, which may potentially explain why prices fall after discounts, although the evidence is not sufficiently widespread for this to be the sole cause. Results parallel the competition authority's view of supermarket promotions and point to the useful contribution that retail price microdata might play in keeping prices in check in countries where highly concentrated retail sectors raise similar concerns.     

Importing High Food Prices by Exporting: Rice Prices in Lao PDR

Lao PDR has extensive export controls on its staple food, glutinous rice, which keep domestic prices low relative to international prices. Using price, harvest, and export data this paper analyses how glutinous rice prices in Laos PDR are related to those in its trading partners, Thailand and Vietnam. We find that rice prices in Lao PDR are more likely to rise following a good harvest year than a bad or a normal year. This is consistent with export controls being relaxed after good harvests, leading to an increase in exports early in the season and rising prices later as stocks are depleted. There is thus a case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes while keeping the long‐term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. However, since high rice prices are likely to affect the poor negatively in the short to medium term, a combination of an export tax and cash transfers is recommended during the transition period. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.     

Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights: Causes and Consequences

A game-theoretic model of heterogeneous producers is developed to examine the economic causes and consequences of intellectual property right (IPR) infringement in the context of a small open developing economy. Analytical results show that complete deterrence of IPR infringement is not always economically optimal. IPR infringement affects economic welfare and has important ramifications for the pricing and adoption of the new technology (biotechnology). The quantitative nature of results depends on the labeling regime. If the TRIPs agreement follows the custom of retaliatory sanctions under GATT, IPR enforcement will remain imperfect and innovators' ability to obtain value for their biotech traits will be limited.     

Food Aid, Food Prices, and Producer Disincentives in Ethiopia

Although the short-term aims of food aid are well conceived, strong concerns have been voiced regarding the long-term impacts of such aid on incentives for agricultural producers in recipient countries. This article examines the statistical link between food aid shipments and food prices in Ethiopia over the period 1996–2006. Monthly data from three markets and three commodities are used to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regression models for food prices. Results indicate that previous year food aid shipments reduce prices in all producer and consumer markets. These effects, however, appear to be limited to the set of internationally traded commodities that are domestically marketed. A recursive regression procedure is used to identify the food aid threshold at which a negative aid effect emerges. Food aid shipments that constitute less than 10% of domestic production appear to be benign, but shipments above this level show signs of being disruptive to local markets. We use a simple policy simulation to argue that production-sensitive targeting, e.g., conditioning food aid on local food production, would help to circumvent disincentive effects.     

How to Understand High Food Prices

Agricultural price booms are better explained by common factors than by market‐specific factors such as supply shocks. A capital asset pricing model‐type model shows why one should expect this and Granger causality analysis establishes the role of demand growth, monetary expansion and exchange rate movements in explaining price movements over the period since 1971. The demand for grains and oilseeds as biofuel feedstocks has been cited as the main cause of the price rise, but there is little direct evidence for this contention. Instead, index‐based investment in agricultural futures markets is seen as the major channel through which macroeconomic and monetary factors generated the 2007–2008 food price rises.     

Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil in 2008

Food price inflation in Brazil in the 12 months to June 2008 was 18%, whereas overall inflation was 7%. Using spatially disaggregated monthly data on consumer prices and two different household surveys, we estimate the welfare consequences of these food price increases, and their distribution across households. Because Brazil is a large food producer, with a predominantly wage‐earning agricultural labour force, our estimates include general equilibrium effects on market and transfer incomes, as well as the standard estimates of changes in consumer surplus. Although the expenditure (or consumer surplus) effects were large, negative and markedly regressive everywhere, estimates of the market‐income effect were positive and progressive, particularly in rural areas. Because of this effect on the rural poor, and of the partial protection afforded by increases in two large social assistance benefits, the overall impact of higher food prices in Brazil was U‐shaped, with middle‐income groups suffering larger proportional losses than the very poor. Nevertheless, as Brazil is 80% urban, higher food prices still led to a greater incidence and depth of poverty at the national level.     

Long-run Relationships Between World Vegetable Oil Prices

In the international edible oil markets, there is believed to be high substitutability between vegetable oils and fats produced under different conditions. In light of this, we consider the question: what is the nature of the long-run relationships between vegetable oil prices? Long-run co-movements among oil prices are analysed, based on a multivariate cointegration model. The empirical finding is that most co-movements are consistent with the predictions of market theory. Prices of oils tend to be grouped according to their different end-uses. Some policy implications of a buffer stock scheme are discussed.     

Farm Input, Farm Output and Retail Food Prices: A Cointegration Analysis

This paper investigates the adjustment mechanism between farm input prices, farm output prices and food retail prices in Canada. Johansen's maximum likelihood approach is used in addition to the Engle-Granger approach to test for cointegration. Contrary to the common assumption that farm output prices are more flexible than farm input prices, it is found that farm output prices, though cointegrated, are weakly exogenous in the sense that they do not respond in a systematic manner to disequilibrium in farm input prices and retail food prices. Evidence is found to support “cost push” and “demand pull” theories but, since food retail prices carry a heavier weight in the cointegration relations, it can be concluded that shocks manifesting themselves (first) at the retail level do not persist as long. Cet ouvrage se concentre sur le mécanisme d'ajustement entre les prix des intrants à la ferme, les prix payés aux producteurs agricoles et les prix de l'alimentation au détail au Canada. Les techniques développées par Johansen et par Engle et Granger sont utilisées pour vérifier des hypothèses reliées à la cointegration. Contrairement à la présomption que les prix payés aux agriculteurs sont plus flexibles que les prix de leurs intrants, on a découvert que les prix payés aux agriculteurs, bien que cointégrés, sont exogènes au moindre degré dans le sens qu'ils ne s'ajustent pas en fonction du déséquilibre dans les prix des intrants et les prix de l'alimentation au detail. La théorie voulant que les prix montent à cause des hausses dans les prix des intrants est vérifiée de même que la théorie alternative voulant que les ajustements des prix se fassent du détail aux intrants. Fluctuations occasionées par des changements dans les prix de l'alimentation au détail sont dissipées plus rapidement que les ajustements causés par des variations dans les prix des intrants.     

Tracing the Effects of Agricultural Commodity Prices and Food Costs

We estimate a system of product and input-demand equations for food-processing industries to trace the links among farm commodity prices, food-processing costs, and food prices. Disembodied technical change, which likely reflects increasing consumer demand for convenience and product variety, has sharply reduced agricultural materials demand relative to most other food-processing inputs. This implies weakening impacts of farm price shocks on food prices. But improving quality and falling relative prices for agricultural inputs, in combination with increasing factor substitution, has counteracted these forces to encourage greater usage of agricultural inputs in food processing, and limit these trends.     

粮食、食品价格和CPI的VAR实证研究

综述了目前国内关于粮食价格、食品价格对CPI的影响机制的研究.选取2001年7月至2012年12月的月度数据,通过VAR进行了粮食冲击效应分析,采用Johansen检验进行了三者因果的验证,合理解释了食品价格和粮食价格、CPI三者之间的影响关系.结论：在研究的时间段中,粮食价格和食品价格的增长都会引起物价水平的增长;物价水平的上涨也会影响到粮食价格.但是,物价水平对食品价格、粮食价格对食品价格的变化却影响不明显.     

猪肉价格高位大涨的原因及对宏观经济的影响

2007年以来,猪肉价格的高位大涨是猪肉价格长期低迷导致的结果,属于恢复性上涨.猪肉价格的上涨主要是由供给减少引起的.供给主要是受到内外因素的影响,内因是生产成本的推动和养殖户积极性下降;外因是疫病的扰动和流通的不畅.通过建立ECM模型,发现猪肉价格的上涨不会引起通货膨胀,而通货膨胀引起了猪肉价格的上涨.通货膨胀是影响猪肉价格短期波动的持久性因素.     

High Commodity Prices and the EU's Single Payment Scheme: Some Consequences of Double‐Dipping

When negotiating agricultural policies, decisions are generally based on historical net farm income figures, which are derived from the then current price and production data. In 2003, when the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) was introduced in the EU, agricultural commodity prices were “low.” As a result the SPS is very generous when viewed in light of today's “high” agricultural commodities prices: farmers are double‐dipping. We provide an empirical assessment of the implications for compensatory payments under the SPS in combination with high commodity prices for two major EU crops: wheat and barley. Yearly compensatory payments for these two crops alone exceed $10 billion. The lesson of this result for agricultural policy reform is that the payments under the SPS should have been made more flexible and tied to future (farm gate) prices, i.e., so payouts would usually vary with changing market conditions, while still being decoupled from production decisions. Au moment de négocier des politiques agricoles, les décisions sont généralement fondées sur les données historiques sur le revenu agricole net, lesquelles sont dérivées des prix et des données de production d'alors. En 2003, année où l'UE a mis en place le régime de paiement unique (RPU), les prix des produits agricoles étaient ≪faibles≫. Actuellement, le RPU est très généreux en raison des prix ≪élevés≫ des produits agricoles: les producteurs cumulent les avantages. Nous présentons une estimation empirique des répercussions sur les paiements compensatoires du RPU combinées aux prix élevés des produits de base pour deux grandes cultures de l'UE, à savoir le blé et l'orge. Pour ces deux cultures seulement, les paiements compensatoires annuels dépassent les dix milliards de dollars. La leçon est que les paiements versés dans le cadre du RPU auraient dûêtre plus souples et liés aux prix (à la ferme) futurs, de sorte que les versements varieraient généralement en fonction des conditions changeantes du marché tout en demeurant indépendants de la production.     

世界粮食危机引发的思考

本文认为,2005年以前世界市场粮食价格上升的原因是过去近40年粮食生产较快增长导致实际价格下降,进而降低了粮食增长速度,而长期积累的库存扭曲了市场价格信号,延缓了农民、公共部门和科技工作者的反应;2007—2008年粮食价格暴涨暴跌的直接原因则是热钱的投机;粮食危机的本质是收入问题而不是价格问题,因此政府应该用收入政策取代价格管制。     

世界粮食安全问题现状

一、世界粮食安全形势的基本状况联合国粮农组织和世界粮食安全委员会的一些研究报告和资料 ,回顾与分析了 1 996年世界粮食首脑会议以来世界粮食安全的状况。在那次首脑会议上各国领导人确认 :“各国共同和各自承诺 ,实现人人享有粮食安全” ,并同意努力实现“在 2 0 1 5年之前将营养不良的人数减少到目前人数的一半”的近期目标。但是 ,迄今世界粮食首脑会议确定的每年减少 2 0 0 0万营养不良人数的目标远没有实现 ,世界粮食安全形势依然严峻。目前在发展中国家有 7.92亿人、在发达国家有 340 0万人长期挨饿。更不可忽视的是 ,还存在着影…