Impacts of monetary and macroeconomic factors on food prices in eastern and southern Africa

Eastern and southern Africa has been experiencing relatively large increases in real food prices since the early 1980s. Real food prices in some African countries grew as much as 11% per year during the 1980-1996 period. The huge volatility in food prices coincided with the implementation of structural adjustment programmes in several African countries. This study examines the impacts of monetary and macroeconomic factors on real food prices in eastern and southern Africa. Using the technique of cointegration and error correction modelling to test the long-run relationship between real food prices and the factors that influence their behaviour in selected African countries. Demand elasticities for food are estimated for selected countries. The empirical results show that changes in domestic food production, coupled with income, trade, exchange rate and monetary policies have significant impacts on real food prices, with wide implications for food availability and food security in the region.     

Exchange rate volatility and agricultural trade under policy reforms in South Africa

Decades of government intervention have helped develop the South African agriculture sector to its present state. Policy reforms have included trade and exchange rate policies to increase the country's international competitiveness, reduce poverty and promote economic growth. These reforms are facilitating the growth in agricultural trade and South Africa's reintegration into the global economy. Annual agricultural exports and imports have increased. This paper uses annual data and a vector error-correction model to investigate the supply and demand relationships for agricultural trade flows in South Africa during the past four decades. The results show that prices, real exchange rates, domestic production capacity and real incomes have significant impacts on the country's agricultural trade. In particular, exchange rate volatility has negative impacts. This cannot be viewed solely as an exogenous source of macroeconomic instability in South Africa, as domestic policies play a crucial role in influencing the movement of exchange rates.     

Do Attention-Grabbing Stocks Attract All Investors? Evidence from China

Abstract:

Using a unique and comprehensive data set of China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange, we test whether all investors adopt attention-grabbing stocks. Only the less-wealthy individuals, the Small Group, are found to have the tendency to pursue attention-grabbing stocks, such as abnormal-volume stocks, extreme-return stocks, and initial public offering stocks. By contrast, wealthy individuals, such as the Middle and Large Groups, are the sellers of attention-grabbing stocks and prefer non-attention-grabbing stocks, thereby exhibiting a behavior resembling that of institutional investors. The wealth levels of individual investors may account for such heterogeneous trading behavior. Heterogeneous trading behavior may address one reason why only the less-wealthy individuals do poorly in China’s stock market. Accordingly, we suggest that the Small Group manage the stock selection problem through consultancy with investment institutions.     

The effects of macroeconomic factors on South African agriculture

Significant research efforts have been devoted to understanding the effects of macroeconomic factors on the agriculture sector. Analysing the sources of volatility in the industry is critical for designing appropriate policies to stabilize agricultural markets, reduce poverty and increase economic growth. Agriculture is a competitive sector with prices that are more flexible than those in nonagricultural sectors. This article uses annual data over the 1957–2004 period and a vector error-correction model in investigating the dynamic effects of exchange rates, money supply and other macroeconomic variables on the agricultural sector in South Africa. Overall, real exchange rates, interest rates, inflation and money supply (M3) shocks have significant and persistent impacts on agricultural output, prices received by farmers and farm input prices. M3 and interest rate shocks tend to put agriculture in a cost-price squeeze. Agricultural price movements are a source of macroeconomic instability in the country. Real exchange rate shocks shift relative prices in favour of agriculture in the long-run, thereby, boosting farm incomes and accelerating poverty reduction in the country.     

Food prices and long-run purchasing power parity in Africa

The purchasing power parity (PPP) theory is a cornerstone of exchange rate models in international economics. PPP is very important for two main reasons: first, it can serve as a prediction model for exchange rates, and second, it can serve as a benchmark in judging the level of exchange rate movements. This article utilised the Johansen cointegration technique in examining whether or not there is empirical support for long-run PPP in Africa. Annual data were used for exchange rates and food price indices in 25 countries covering the 1958-97 period. The empirical evidence showed strong support for long-run PPP in Africa, thereby providing wider acceptance for the applicability of PPP in exchange rate and other macroeconomic adjustment policies.