the spatial impact of genetically modified crops abstract although genetically modified gm organisms have attracted a great deal of public attention analysis of their economic impacts has been less common it is perhaps spatial externalities where the divergence between efficient and unregulated outcomes is potentially largest because the presence of transgenic crops may eliminate or severely reduce the planting of organic varieties and other crops where some consumers have a preference for non gm crops this paper constructs a simple model of the possible spatial external effects of the introduction of transgenic varieties and considers some of the public policy options for regulating the divergence between market outcomes and the efficient allocation of resources to gm crops it is shown that co existence may be impossible without strong regulation on planting patterns

impacts in uganda of rising global food prices the role of diversified staples and limited price transmission this study assesses the potential impact of rising world food prices on the welfare of ugandan households while uganda experienced sharply higher food prices in 2008 as a landlocked food exporting country the causes of those price changes were mainly regional and indirect rather than directly transmitted from global markets using trade volumes food prices and household survey data we describe how uganda unlike some other countries is partially shielded from direct impacts of global food price movements although the majority of ugandans are net food buyers the adverse impact at household level of rising global prices is moderated by the relatively large quantity and range of staples consumed that come from home production moreover several of these are not widely traded some population groups in uganda are vulnerable to rising food prices however primarily those for whom maize is an important staple including those dependent upon humanitarian relief and the urban poor only a relatively small group of ugandan households will benefit directly and immediately from rising food prices the significant net sellers of food crops constituting between 12 and 27 of the population in this assessment we do not estimate the level and extent of wider second round effects from these higher prices jel classification q18 r22

inserting gm products into the food chain the market and welfare effects of different labeling and regulatory regimes the purpose of this article is to examine the system wide effects of the introduction of genetically modified gm products with and without labeling and to compare these two regimes to a third regime where gm products are not present either because they have not yet been developed or because they have been banned for each regime the decisions and welfare of consumers producers and life science companies are examined the article explicitly incorporates the consumer response to the introduction of gm technology and considers different market structures of the life science sector

how far down the path to free trade the importance of rice price stabilization in developing asia abstract international trade agreements are pushing the world in the direction of free trade but price stabilization which is inconsistent with completely free trade remains important in developing asia because of the large share of rice in economic output a policy of pure price stabilization for rice without consistent protection either subsidization or taxation can help to create the macroeconomic stability that is essential for sustained rapid economic growth by increasing the quantity and efficiency of investment throughout the economy pure price stabilization can also generate significant equity gains by protecting poor consumers and farmers from sharp fluctuations in prices while domestic commodity price stabilization schemes have a checkered history around the world the experience of asian countries in stabilizing rice prices offers more scope for optimism asian governments have been generally successful in stabilizing rice prices and there are several instances where this has been accomplished without sustained protection of either consumers or farmers however there is room for improved stabilization mechanisms that would lower the costs of intervention

macroeconomic effects of price controls the role of market structure the impetus for the current study comes from an attempt to understand the results of israel s stabilisation programme of july i985 the programme consisted of a sharp reduction in aggregate spending via an increase in net taxes and a moderate reduction in government spending a devaluation followed by a fixed exchange rate and price and wage controls the results of the programme are reported in table i in the first quarter that followed the implementation of the programme i e the third quarter of i985 aggregate spending declined exports increased imports declined the real wage rate declined and employment declined these results can be explained by a conventional competitive macroeconomic model as i will show in section ii during the next six months all the variables reversed their course this would be easy to explain with a conventional competitive model if the price controls had been removed however they were not and it is difficult to reconcile the comovement of the reported variables in their presence especially intriguing is the simultaneous increase in the real wage rate and employment this is so because in a competitive model price controls lead to excess demand in this case increased spending has no price or employment effects while a wage increase reduces employment the difficulty is further aggravated by the fact that contrary to the model s prediction almost no shortages have been observed in addition as shown in section ii partial relaxation of price controls is also incapable of explaining the data with this type of model this led me to study a macroeconomic model with oligopolistic markets i have chosen to work with a particular form of imperfect competition which proves to be useful for the purpose at hand it is however possible to think about alternatives which are also of interest clearly it is pointless to cover all these

state intervention for food price stabilisation in africa can it work abstract although its arguments may have more general applicability this paper discusses the desirability and options for the stabilisation of staple food prices principally in eastern and southern africa it addresses three broad questions i why is stabilisation of food grain prices desirable ii what is technically feasible and iii can the governance and trade issues thrown up by suggested mechanisms be solved it considers a number of options for price stabilisation assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each and suggesting situations in which each may be appropriate

synthesizing the malthusian and senian approaches on scarcity a realist account food entitlement decline fed and food availability decline fad are two approaches to explaining famines that have different policy implications one focuses on the systemic level whereas the other is concerned with the individual level they therefore analyse relatively distinct causal mechanisms thus an important question is whether these approaches can be reconciled another related question is how fad and fed based explanations relate to classical malthusian views about rapid food requirement increase fri this paper analyses these questions and argues that these three approaches can indeed be reconciled within a single framework by outlining the causal sources of fad fed and fri this task requires among other things the separation of ontological categories and empirical measures as a consequence of this argument the paper suggests that there are only seven possible ontological combinations of how a famine situation can arise as a direct cause simultaneously it maintains that there are virtually an infinite number of ways in which these combinations may act as indirect causes rooted in economic political and social conditions the analysis is exemplified by the bengal famine of 1943 because that famine is a well known case the wider research and policy applicability of this general account are discussed but have yet to be tested in relation to other scarcity cases water land fish this synthesis is made possible by the incorporation of critical realist interventions into economic theory

the worth of a wildflower precautionary perspectives on the environmental risk of gmos abstract how much is a wildflower worth inspired by the worth of a songbird by funtowicz and ravetz funtowicz s o ravetz j r 1994 the worth of a songbird ecological economics as a post normal science ecological economics 10 197 207 we use the value of a wildflower as symbol of the complexity of evaluating environmental qualities and risks we critically discuss the application of cost benefit analysis in evaluating environmental impacts of adoption of genetically modified organisms gmos we argue that cost benefit analysis should be supplemented with other methods such as processes for assessing uncertainty accommodation of scientific disagreements and integration of stakeholders interests and perspectives a more inclusive perspective is to develop precautionary approaches that recognize the multidimensional nature of environmental qualities and risks such as irreplaceability irreversibility uncertainty and complexity precautionary approaches can contribute to develop a stronger environmental responsibility within the framework of rational self interest

a review of the ecological and socioeconomic effects of biofuel and energy policy recommendations abstract many countries have attached great emphasis on biofuel because it is universally acknowledged renewable and sustainable however there remain doubts regarding biofuel s renewability cleanliness and ecological friendliness in addition its impacts on income employment and food security have been widely discussed therefore the effect of developing biofuel as an important method of resolving the energy crisis and climate change is questioned based on the rocketing concern on the multiple effects of biofuel this paper provides a comprehensive and updated review of the literature on biofuel s ecological effects and socioeconomic effects the literature included in this paper is selected english language papers being published since 2004 we find that existing studies have not arrived at a consensus regarding the ecological or the socioeconomic effects of biofuel there remain uncertainty and doubts toward biofuel s renewability and cleanliness biofuel s impacts on water and biodiversity are also questioned although biofuel is widely regarded to have positive impacts on income and employment many studies prove that biofuel influences food security negatively besides biofuel s economic cost is likely to be the barrier to its promotion because of the uncertainty of biofuel s impacts this study recommends cautious attitude toward biofuel development especially for those countries where biofuel development would be inappropriate and suggests that policy makers engage in demand side management instead of unsustainable supply side management

a policy agenda for pro poor agricultural growth abstract sub saharan africa and parts of south asia are likely to hold large numbers of very poor rural people into the foreseeable future although both history and theory suggest a pre eminent role for agricultural growth in poverty reduction in poor agrarian economies such growth today faces new difficulties many of these difficulties are endogenous to today s poor rural areas others result from broader processes of global change but some are due to changes in the dominant policy environment emphasizing liberalization and state withdrawal examination of 20th century green revolutions suggests that active state interventions were important in supporting critical stages of agricultural market development unfortunately such interventions benefits in institutional development are easily overlooked whereas their high costs are much more visible policy implications are discussed

cash crop production food price volatility and rural market integration in the third world large farmers in the third world often devote to cash crops a larger share of their land than do small farmers this paper suggests a possible explanation even in the presence of food markets third world farmers food security is best assured by food self sufficiency a model of crop portfolio choice under multivariate risk is used to show that reasonable assumptions regarding risk and preferences reproduce the observed pattern simulations further indicate that food market integration reduces the need for food self sufficiency policy implications are drawn regarding domestic trade liberalization and agricultural technology

distributional effects of maize price increases in malawi abstractin the wake of highly volatile world prices of staple commodities we examine the impacts of increases in maize prices on various categories of households in malawi using household level data changes in household income are calculated taking into account the net maize production status of the household and food price elasticities estimated from a censored demand system while maize price increases have unequivocal deleterious effects on the incomes of urban households rural households experience differential impacts net producing households in rural areas benefit from price increases with households above the poverty line obtaining proportionally higher incomes

food marketing and pricing policy in eastern and southern africa a survey abstract this article surveys the empirical record of grain marketing and pricing policy in eastern and southern africa over 1930 1995 the paper addresses five key issues with major implications for food policy throughout africa a why the anticipated supply response to market liberalization has not yet occurred b why the common assumption of state taxation of farmers to support a cheap food policy does not apply in most of the countries in the region c why the temporary successes of the state led approach to stimulating smallholder grain production were unsustainable d why the elimination of government food subsidies associated with market reform has not adversely affected consumers and e why the fiscal cost of the marketing systems at least initially worsened rather than improved after the reforms were implemented in most countries the key future challenges for marketing policy are how to develop coordinated and financially sustainable input finance and commodity marketing systems for raising productivity growth in smallholder agriculture while overcoming inherited agricultural dualism and how to mitigate the effects of food price instability in a cost effective manner

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

higher fuel and food prices impacts and responses for mozambique rising world prices for fuel and food represent a negative terms of trade shock for mozambique the impacts of these price rises are analyzed using various approaches detailed price data show that the world price increases are being transmitted to domestic prices short run net benefit ratio analysis indicates that urban households and households in the southern region are more vulnerable to food price increases rural households particularly in the north and center often benefit from being in a net seller position longer term analysis using a computable general equilibrium cge model of mozambique indicates that the fuel price shock dominates rising food prices from both macroeconomic and poverty perspectives again negative impacts are larger in urban areas the importance of agricultural production response in general and export response in particular is highlighted policy analysis reveals difficult trade offs between short run mitigation and long run growth improved agricultural productivity has powerful positive impacts but remains difficult to achieve and may not address the immediate impacts of higher prices

agricultural price transmission elasticity importance of controlling for unobserved common factors a voluminous amount of the literature estimates price transmission from world markets to domestic markets ignoring unobserved factors that commonly affect domestic markets this article reevaluates the long run and short run transmission elasticity of world food price shocks to domestic markets using a common factor framework that takes unobserved common factors that are correlated with regressors into consideration in the estimation annual price data for rice wheat and maize for a panel of developed and developing countries that are observed over the period of 1960 2007 are used the results from a common factor framework to those that do not account for common factors are then compared our findings suggest that ignorance of common factors is likely to result in upwardly biased elasticity estimates

informing food security decisions in africa empirical analysis and policy dialogue discussions of economic and agricultural development in africa have focused heavily in recent years on structural adjustment i e basic policy changes aimed at allowing international and domestic markets to play a greater role in coordinating national economic activities often these structural adjustments and accompanying policies aimed at improving economic performance have been based on several implicit assumptions about how african food systems operate yet for many countries little empirical information has been available to test these assumptions hence designing policies too often becomes an exercise in planning without facts this paper argues that not only is there a need to base food security and structural adjustment policies more firmly on empirical information but that the process by which the information is obtained is as important as the information itself agricultural economists and other social scientists can and increasingly should design policy research in africa in ways that simultaneously increase effective demand for empirical information as an input into the ongoing policy process and augment african capacity continually to inform policy deliberations we illustrate the payoffs to such an approach by drawing on selected experience in several african countries weber

real exchange rate effects of fiscal expansion under trade restrictions we develop a small open economy trade model where either a tariff or a quota or a voluntary export restraint ver exists and where one exported one imported one non traded and one public good are produced within this context we examine the effects of fiscal expansion on welfare and the real exchange rate rer among other things it is demonstrated that when the direct social profitability effect of the public good is positive and the public good is a net complement to the non traded good fiscal expansion causes an appreciation of the rer under free trade and under a tariff when the public good is also a net complement to the imported good the paper identifies additional conditions required to ensure the appreciation of the rer due to fiscal expansion under an import quota or a ver les effets de 1 expansion fiscale sur les taux de change reels quand il y a des restrictions au commerce international les auteurs developpent un modele de commerce international d une petite economie ouverte oiu existe soit un tarif douanier soit un contingentement soit une restriction volontaire des exportations dans ce modele un bien import6 un bien exporte un bien qui n est pas transige internationalement et un bien public sont produits

the role of warehouse receipt systems in enhanced commodity marketing and rural livelihoods in africa most african countries have since the 1980s liberalised agriculture without experiencing food crisis as feared by sceptics but the outcome of reforms has been rather disappointing and agricultural markets remain underdeveloped and inefficient one means to improve agricultural marketing which is the focus of this paper is to develop regulated warehouse receipt wr systems the system will curtail cheating on weights and measures ease access to finance at all levels in the marketing chain moderate seasonal price variability and promote instruments to mitigate price risks it will also reduce the need for the government to intervene in agricultural markets and reduce the cost of such interventions if needed the major problem in establishing wr systems in africa is disabling elements in the policy environment drawing on experience from projects implemented in africa during the last decade 1 the authors outline how this challenge can be addressed the most crucial being to build strong stakeholder support behind the initiative 2002 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

on the proportionality of eu spatial ex ante coexistence regulations a comment abstract in their recent article in this journal demont et al 2009 discuss the effects of alternative spatial ex ante coexistence regulations seacers in the context of the eu regulatory framework we retain from demont et al 2009 that small pollen barriers should be considered as a possible regulatory option in all identifiable situations in which they are as effective as large isolation distances this idea is in accordance with the proportionality principle of the 2003 ec recommendation but further analysis of how consumer choice and consumer welfare are affected should be conducted before supporting the idea that seacers should be flexible that is that gmo farmers should always have the option of paying their non gmo neighbours to implement the seacers in their own fields we reject the authors argument that pollen barriers are necessarily more easily negotiable among neighbours more flexible than are isolation distances we contest the relation of proportionality to the size of market signals for ip products we contest the idea of shifting coexistence regulation from ex ante to ex post we believe that any economic analysis of coexistence measures should include their welfare effects on consumers as well as on producers

anatomy of a crisis the causes and consequences of surging food prices although the potential causes and consequences of recent rising international food prices have attracted widespread attention many existing appraisals are superficial and or piecemeal this article attempts to provide a more comprehensive review of these issues based on the best and most recent research as well as on fresh theoretical and empirical analysis we first analyze the causes of the current crisis by considering how well standard explanations hold up against relevant economic theory and important stylized facts some explanations turn out to hold up much better than others especially rising oil prices the depreciation of the u s dollar biofuels demand and some commodity specific explanations we then provide an appraisal of the likely macro and microeconomic impacts of the crisis on developing countries we observe a large gap between macro and micro factors which when identifying the most vulnerable countries often point in different directions we conclude with a brief discussion of what ought to be learned from this crisis

zimbabwe s maize based green revolution preconditions for replication abstract the green revolution was launched in 1960 in zimbabwe five years before it got underway in india since zimbabwe s green revolution was spearheaded by white commercial farmers however it was ignored by africa s new leaders in the 1960s as they experimented with state farms from moscow communal farms from china and land settlement schemes from israel at zimbabwe s independence in 1980 the new majority ruled government introduced a number of programs to help smallholders increase food and cash crop production drawing on a backlog of hybrid maize varieties expanded access to credit higher guaranteed government maize prices and marketing subsidies smallholders doubled maize production during 1980 1986 zimbabwe s maize based green revolution challenges those who allege that hybrid maize cannot compete with sorghum in low rainfall areas and that it is unsuitable for resource poor farmers because of the need to purchase new seed each year today virtually 100 of zimbabwe s maize area is under hybrids and short season hybrids are outcompeting other foodgrains in many low rainfall areas zimbabwe s biggest challenge is to develop cost effective marketing policies and institutions to sustain its maize based green revolution countries trying to replicate zimbabwe s success story should focus on fulfilling four interrelated preconditions political technological economic and institutional

the future of small farms trajectories and policy priorities summary while smallholder development has in the past led to reductions in poverty and hunger does this still apply in today s more globalized world this paper reviews the debates on the contemporary role of agriculture in development and the case for small farms in light of the rise of supermarkets lower commodity prices and liberalized trade agricultural research funding environmental change hiv aids and changing policy ideas although the answers vary greatly by context for many low income countries smallholder development remains a key option the policy agenda however has changed in addition to providing public goods the growing challenge is to overcome market failures which is largely a matter of institutional innovation

feeding africa s cities the case of the supply chain of teff to addis ababa abstracturbanization is quickly increasing in africa raising important questions on how food value chains to cities function and what the implications of urban growth are for the local food trade and farm sector we study the rural urban value chain of teff in ethiopia by value its most important staple value chain relying on unique large scale surveys at different levels in this value chain we find in contrast to conventional wisdom that value chains are relatively short and that average farmers obtain a high share about 80 of the final consumer price in the major terminal market addis ababa we further find that producer prices decline in line with transportation costs the farther farmers live from the city that seasonal price movements are rather small and that average stock release by farmers is smooth over the year

coexistence of gm and non gm crops with endogenously determined separation the possibility that genetically modified gm crops may contaminate non gm crops through pollen mediated gene flow presents a challenge to coexistence of gm agriculture with conventional and organic farming systems in this paper an analytical model of coexistence is developed that allows for endogenous derivation of efficient widths and allocation of pollen barriers to limit contamination of non gm crops to reflect the uncertainty that surrounds pollen dispersal mechanisms the model contains a stochastic contamination function and safety rule decision mechanism constraining the level of contamination to remain below a tolerated adventitious presence with a given probability two policies are considered and their performance is tested the tolerance level of adventitious presence and the allocation of responsibility for implementing coexistence measures to either gm or non gm farmers the relative size of gm rents the value of productivity gains and the non pecuniary benefits from gm crops rents for identity preserved non gm crops price premiums realised over the gm crop price characteristics of farms and possible variation in agricultural landscapes are also taken into account the findings indicate that conventional adventitious presence tolerances can be met without ex ante mandating large widths of pollen barriers at the policy level the findings of this paper are relevant for setting region specific pollen barriers widths and or for establishing institutions that facilitate cooperative coexistence

stabilization policy and public sector prices abstract this paper analyzes the impact of public sector price increases combined with employment cuts in a dynamic optimizing model if the government adopts a tough layoff policy the real wage is highly flexible and the reforms are perceived to be permanent there is a strong presumption that real output will be higher and inflation lower over all time horizons problems may arise during the adjustment process however when the reforms are not credible or the real wage adjusts slowly to clear the labor market

self reported food insecurity in africa during the food price crisis this article analyzes data on self reported food insecurity of more than 50 000 individuals in 18 sub saharan african countries over the period 2005 2008 when global food prices increased dramatically the average level of self reported food insecurity was high but remarkably stable over time at about 54 however this average hides large heterogeneity both within countries and across countries in eight of the sample countries self reported food security improved while it worsened in the ten other countries our results suggest that heterogeneous effects in self reported food security are consistent with economic predictions as they are correlated with economic growth and net food consumption both at the household and country level specifically in the face of rising food prices self reported food security improved on average in rural households while it worsened in urban households a finding that holds when using global prices or domestic food prices improvements in food security over time were also positively correlated with net food exports and gdp per capita growth while the self reported indicator used in this paper requires further study and one should carefully interpret the results our findings suggest the need for a critical evaluation of the currently used data and numbers in the public debate on food prices and food insecurity

liberalization and food price distributions arch m evidence from madagascar abstract there is no well articulated theory of how stochastic food prices respond to economic liberalization measures a surprising oversight in the vast literature on market oriented reforms this paper presents reduced form estimates of the effects of liberalization measures on food commodity prices in madagascar using autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic in mean arch m methods the data indicate that the short term effects of liberalization on the mean and variance of food prices vary substantially by commodity region and season in the long term liberalization increases both the mean and the variance of food prices the abandonment of a quantity rationed state marketing system with administrative pricing also leads to smaller inter regional and interseasonal differences in mean food prices and a sharp increase in price autocorrelation real exchange rates have pronounced positive effects on mean food prices but these effects emerge indirectly rather than directly through induced changes to border parity prices

international factor mobility minimum wage rates and factor price equalization a synthesis this paper examines the behavior of a small open economy facing perfectly elastic supply curves for some of its productive factors in particular the paper derives some comparative statics properties of such economies compares them with the properties of otherwise identical economies in which all factor prices are determined endogenously and investigates the relationship between factor price rigidities factor price equalization and the pattern of specialization among the new results which are proved it is shown that as more and more factor price rigidities are imposed on an economy it comes closer to a state of factor price equalization

local impacts of a global crisis food price transmission consumer welfare and poverty in ghana abstract this paper takes a local perspective on global food price shocks by analyzing food price transmission between regional markets in ghana it also assesses the impacts of food price increases on various household groups taking the 2007 2008 global food crisis as an example we show that prices for domestic grain products are highly correlated with world market prices this is true both for products for which ghana is highly import dependent e g rice and the products for which ghana is self sufficient e g maize the econometric results also show that price transmission is high between regional producer markets and markets located in the country s largest cities and the distance between producer and consumer markets and the size of consumer markets matter in explaining the price transmission the welfare analysis for households as consumers shows that the effect of world food prices appears relatively modest for the country as a whole due to relatively diverse consumption patterns within country however the national average hides important regional differences both between regions and within different income groups we find that the poorest of the poor particularly those living in the urban areas are hardest hit by high food prices the negative effect of the food crisis is particularly strong in northern ghana the main explanations for this regional variation in the price effect is the different consumption patterns and much lower per capita income levels in the north of ghana compared to other regions in the country

exploring the logic behind southern africa s food crises summary government action during food crises in southern africa frequently exacerbates the problems driving food staple prices well beyond import parity we argue that an inability to make credible commitments due largely to a lack of trust between public and private sectors contributes to this dynamic empirical policy analysis can facilitate resolution only within a consultative process involving a broad range of stakeholders the policies emerging from such a process are not likely to approximate first best recommendations yet the precise policies may be less important than the fact that they exist and that main stakeholders find them credible

farmers welfare and changing food prices nonparametric evidence from rice in madagascar this paper uses nonparametric density estimation and kernel smoothing techniques to examine the instantaneous distributional implications of rice price changes in madagascar while many farmers do not participate in product markets as either buyers or sellers and net sales or marketable surplus are fairly small for many others the roughly one third of rice farmers who fall below the poverty line face significant negative first order welfare effects from increases in the mean or variance of rice prices conversely the first order gains from rice price increases are highly concentrated among the largest rice farmers and particular regions in madagascar

false promise or false premise the experience of food and input market reform in eastern and southern africa abstract the literature on the effects of agricultural market reform in africa is sharply divided and inconsistent this article attempts to reconcile opposing viewpoints on the effects of food and input market policy reform in eastern and southern africa drawing from studies of ethiopia kenya malawi zambia and zimbabwe we argue that a major source of the controversy stems from assumptions that countries have actually moved to a liberalized market environment we find that many of the most fundamental elements of the reform programs either remain unimplemented were reversed within several years or were implemented in such a way as to negate private sector investment incentives a framework is developed for explaining why some countries have been able to liberalize their food and fertilizer markets while others have not these findings have implications for how donor assistance and policy oriented research can more constructively contribute to an improved policy environment

the impact of food inflation on urban poverty and its monetary cost some back of the envelope calculations this paper uses a sample of 73 developing countries to estimate the change in the cost of alleviating urban poverty brought about by the recent increase in food prices this cost is approximated by the change in the poverty deficit that is the variation in financial resources required to eliminate poverty under perfect targeting the results show that for most countries the cost represents less than 0 1 percent of gross domestic product however in the most severely affected it may exceed 3 percent in all countries the change in the poverty deficit is mostly due to the negative real income effect of those households that were poor before the price shock while the cost attributable to new households falling into poverty is negligible thus in countries where transfer mechanisms with effective targeting already exist the most cost effective strategy would be to scale up such programs rather than designing tools to identify the new poor

the global food crisis disaster opportunity or non event household level evidence from cote d ivoire summary using 2008 lsms data for cote d ivoire we study the welfare implications of the price increase of key imported staple food rice and consider the consumption smoothing effect of locally produced food and cash crop varieties while middle income urban households are adversely affected by rising rice prices relatively poor rural households benefit availability of local staple alternatives leads to further income redistribution from net consumers toward net producers of staples by contrast the ability to generate income from tropical cash crops not only improves the welfare of rural households but helps smooth the consumption of urban households

a theory of price control price or rent control is but one of many forms of legislative action which interfere with private contracting in the market place to delimit the scope of my analysis i shall use the term price control to refer only to any set of regulations which satisfies the following three conditions first the control must fix the price or income terms of private contracts this categorically excludes any laws which regulate the distribution of income among the contracting parties on a share or percentage basis 2 second the control must involve no appropriation of proceeds to or from the government taxation and subsidization are thus excluded finally the fixing of price must not be associated with direct government sales purchases or manipulation of resources so as to maintain the regulated price 3 by this stipulation price support is also excluded even on such terms legal regulations to control price are still many and varied to evaluate our understanding of the class of phenomena which we seek to explain it is essential that we discover implications refutable by facts by this criterion the available body of economic theory pertaining to price control is deficient indeed the massive literature on the subject offers few such implications 4 an alternative approach to analyzing the observable effects of price control is presented here

public sector pricing and the real exchange rate we examine the effects of consumption subsidies public enterprise pricing and price controls on the real exchange rate under plausible assumptions we show that permanent reform in these areas leads to a permanent real exchange rate appreciation an empirical application to the 1990 fujimori plan in peru is discussed redistribution purposes sometimes even to buy votes by populist leaders since economic reform usually requires the shutting down of loans from the central bank to parastatals reducing consumption subsidies and increasing public enterprise prices price reform plays an important role in imf and world bank programmes edwards 1989a for example found that public enterprise price increases and reductions in consumption subsidies were involved in 79 and 44 per cent respectively of imf programmes between 1983 and 1985 trade reforms in contrast were present in just 35 per cent of cases to date the real exchange rate effects of public sector price policies have

on the proportionality of eu spatial ex ante coexistence regulations reply desquilbet and bullock 2010 criticize some aspects of our analysis of the european union s eu spatial ex ante coexistence regulations seacers of genetically modified gm and non gm crops presented in demont et al 2009 we argue that besides misinterpreting some of our original arguments the authors propose a policy analysis framework which is inconsistent with the main goal of the eu s seacers their example incorrectly suggests that seacers play an additional role of regulating non gm crop supply on the market this would be inefficient from a policy economics perspective especially in an open economy where global trade is taken into account therefore we argue that analyzing flexibility of seacers in a market framework could lead to erroneous conclusions and in that case a simple farm level analysis such as presented in demont et al 2009 is preferred