commodity prices trade and poverty in uruguay abstract the 2006 2008 food price spike raised concerns about the impact of high commodity prices on poverty in developing countries this paper addresses these concerns in relation to uruguay a small country that exports agricultural commodities and imports fuels applying a general equilibrium model we find that as a whole an increase in commodity prices has a positive effect on the economy of uruguay benefits obtained through a growth in export activities are partially outweighed by an increase in crude oil prices in this context extreme poverty increases as in other countries the increase in food prices affects the already poor population who become even poorer this fact highlights the need for policies that mitigate the negative effects of price shocks

rethinking the global food crisis the role of trade shocks although fundamental factors were clearly responsible for shifting the world to a higher food price equilibrium in the years leading up the 2008 food crisis there is little doubt that when food prices peaked in june of 2008 they soared well above the new equilibrium price numerous arguments have been proposed to explain overshooting including financial speculation depreciation of the united states us dollar low interest rates and reductions in grain stocks however observations that international rice prices surged in response to export restrictions by india and vietnam suggested that trade related factors could be an important basis for overshooting especially given the very tangible link between export volumes and export prices in this paper we revisit the trade story by closely examining monthly data from thailand the largest exporter of rice and the united states the largest exporter of wheat and maize and the third largest exporter of soybeans in all cases except soybeans we find that large surges in export volumes preceded the price surges the presence of these large demand surges together with back of the envelope estimates of their price impacts suggests that trade events played a much larger and more pervasive role than previously thought

a global vector autoregression model for the analysis of wheat export prices food commodity price fluctuations have an important impact on poverty and food insecurity across the world conventional models have not provided a complete picture of recent price spikes in agricultural commodity markets and there is an urgent need for appropriate policy responses perhaps new approaches are needed to better understand international spill overs the feedback between the real and the financial sectors as well as the link between food and energy prices in this article we present the results from a new worldwide dynamic model that provides the short and long run impulse responses of the international wheat price to various real and financial shocks

drivers and triggers of international food price spikes and volatility the objective of this study is to explore empirical evidence about the quantitative importance of supply demand and market shocks for price changes in international food commodity markets to this end it distinguishes between root conditional and internal drivers of price changes using three empirical models 1 a price spike model in which monthly food price returns spikes are estimated against oil prices supply and demand shocks and excessive speculative activity 2 a volatility model in which annualized monthly variability of food prices is estimated against the same set of variables plus a financial crisis index and 3 a trigger model that estimates extreme values of price spikes and volatility using quantile regressions the results point to increasing linkages between food energy and financial markets this explains much of the observed food price spikes and volatility while financial speculation amplifies short term price spikes oil price volatility intensifies medium term price volatility

sit down at the ball game how trade barriers make the world less food secure this paper analyses the impacts of trade policy responses to rising world food prices by carrying out a series of stylised experiments in the wheat market using a world trade model gtap the sequence of events that is modelled comprises a negative wheat supply shock and subsequent implementation of an export tax by a major net exporter and a reduction in import tariffs by a small importer the effects of trade policy responses are contrasted with those of full liberalisation of the wheat market at the core are the opposite effects on producers and consumers as well as the terms of trade and trade tax revenue effects food security is shown to depend crucially on changes in prices but also in incomes that are associated with changes in factor returns the results reveal that major net exporters are generally better off when implementing export taxes for food security purposes large exporting countries export price instability causing world food prices to rise further net importing countries lose out and have limited leeway to reduce tariffs or subsidise imports liberalising wheat trade mitigates rising prices and contributes to food security but to the detriment of production in africa and asia making them more dependent on and vulnerable to changes in the world market concerted action at the wto forum is required notably clarifying and sharpening the rules regarding export measures

energy and resource allocation a dynamic model of the dutch disease it is well known that a domestic resource discovery gives rise to wealth effects that cause a squeeze of the tradeable good sector of an open economy the decline of the manufacturing sector following an energy discovery has been termed the dutch disease and has been investigated in many recent studies our model extends the principally static analyses to date by allowing for 1 short run capital specificity and long run capital mobility 2 international capital flows and 3 far sighted intertemporal optimizing behaviour by households and firms the model is solved by numerical simulation

is a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth contributing to the rise in commodity prices a slowdown in the rate of agricultural productivity growth is thought by many observers to be contributing to the recent rise in agricultural prices in this article i decompose sources of output growth in global agriculture into aggregate input and total factor productivity tfp components and examine whether productivity growth slowed substantially in the years leading up to the recent rise in commodity prices contrary to widely held perceptions i find no evidence of a general slowdown in sector wide agricultural tfp at least through 2006 if anything the growth rate in agricultural tfp accelerated in recent decades however the results do show a slowdown in the growth of agricultural investment accelerating tfp growth largely offset decelerating input growth to keep the real output of global agriculture growing at about 2 per year since the 1960s regionally however agricultural productivity performance has been uneven these findings have important implications for the appropriate supply side policy response to the current agricultural price crisis

oil shocks and external balances abstract we provide estimates of the effects of demand and supply shocks in the global crude oil market on several measures of oil exporters and oil importers external balances including the oil trade balance the non oil trade balance the current account capital gains and changes in net foreign assets nfa first we show that the effect of oil demand and supply shocks on the merchandise trade balance and the current account which depending on the source of the shock can be large depends critically on the response of the non oil trade balance our results provide evidence of an intermediate degree of international financial integration second we document the presence of large and systematic valuation effects in response to these shocks valuation effects overall tend to cushion the effect of oil demand and supply shocks on the nfa positions of oil exporters and oil importers third we quantify the overall importance of global business cycle demand shocks as well as oil market specific demand and supply shocks for external balances

trade subsidies export bans and price stabilization lessons of bangladesh india rice trade in the 2000s abstract during the world food price crisis of 2007 08 rice importing countries suffered through a sharp increase in international rice prices and disruptions in supply as several rice exporters restricted trade to mitigate their domestic price increases perhaps no country was more affected by these disruptions than bangladesh our analysis shows that prior to the 2007 crisis when bangladesh imported an average of nearly 1 million tons of rice per year from india domestic wholesale prices of rice in bangladesh were co integrated with import parity prices of subsidized below poverty line bpl rice when in mid 2007 india sharply curtailed exports rice prices surged in bangladesh model simulations show that a relatively small increase in private consumer stocks equivalent to about 2 weeks of normal consumption could account for the large surge in domestic prices in bangladesh and that an additional 300 000 tons in addition to approximately 700 000 tons of net rice distribution that actually occurred would have been sufficient to stabilize prices in the november 2007 april 2008 period the bangladesh analysis thus shows that in spite of the uncertainty in international markets careful planning timely interventions and openness to trade can substantially reduce requirements for public stockholding

empirical effects of short term export bans the case of african maize abstract temporary export restrictions have been widely used in recent years in an attempt to stabilize domestic prices of staple grains i use monthly market level price data to investigate the empirical effects of 13 short term export bans on maize implemented by 5 countries in east and southern africa i find no statistically significant effect of export bans on the price gaps between pairs of affected cross border markets my results for price gaps match those from a model simulation in which export bans are not implemented however prices and price volatility in the implementing country are significantly higher during export ban periods in the data than in the model simulation with no bans export bans in the region are imperfectly enforced divert trade into the informal sector and appear to destabilize domestic markets rather than stabilizing them

how do export controls affect price transmission and volatility spillovers in the ukrainian wheat and flour markets abstract this study investigates the impact of export controls implemented on ukrainian wheat during two periods of significant commodity price spikes and volatility first we investigate the equilibrium price relationship between wheat and flour prices to identify whether export restrictions dampened the price transmission from the wheat market to the flour market second we estimate an asymmetric vec bekk garch model to characterize the nature of short run price adjustments and volatility spillovers between the ukrainian wheat and flour markets the results indicate that export controls insulated the flour market from price shocks in the wheat market by reducing the transmission elasticity by 25 we also find evidence that suggests export controls lead to increased volatility in the flour market in the periods immediately before and after the export controls however we find no evidence that the export controls increase the time invariant i e the constant part of volatility of wheat or flour prices lastly we do not observe asymmetric spillover effects in the flour market but we do find that the wheat market is more volatile when experiencing positive shocks than negative ones

the political economy of food price volatility the case of vietnam and rice this article argues that the structure of the vietnamese rice export system is in political economy terms a rational response to the volatility present in the international rice market in particular it is argued that the vietnamese food agency along with vinafood 1 and vinafood 2 have been structured so that they can benefit from the domestic demands for export restrictions anticipated to occur as a consequence of international price volatility and the psychological demand of consumers for price stability in turn the actions of these agencies also contribute to international price volatility and the resulting demand for export restrictions since the political and economic elite in vietnam obtain both political and economic power from this system it is unlikely to be replaced with more effective and efficient policies to combat domestic price volatility thus continued volatility in the price of rice can be expected

a comparison of the effects of exogenous oil supply shocks on output and inflation in the g7 countries a comparison of the effects of exogenous shocks to global crude oil production on seven major industrialized economies suggests a fair degree of similarity in the real growth responses an exogenous oil supply disruption typically causes a temporary reduction in real gdp growth that is concentrated in the second year after the shock inflation responses are more varied the median cpi inflation response peaks after three to four quarters exogenous oil supply disruptions need not generate sustained inflation or stagflation typical responses include a fall in the real wage higher short term interest rates and a depreciating currency with respect to the dollar despite many qualitative similarities there is strong statistical evidence that the responses to exogenous oil supply disruptions differ across g7 countries for suitable subsets of countries homogeneity cannot be ruled out a counterfactual historical exercise suggests that the evolution of cpi inflation in the g7 countries would have been similar overall to the actual path even in the absence of exogenous shocks to oil production consistent with a monetary explanation of the inflation of the 1970s there is no evidence that the 1973 1974 and 2002 2003 oil supply shocks had a substantial impact on real growth in any g7 country whereas the 1978 1979 1980 and 1990 1991 shocks contributed to lower growth in at least some g7 countries jel e31 e32 q43

atheoretical macroeconometrics a critique abstract the spurious nature of the restrictions used to identify many macroeconometric models has led some researchers to advocate a style of econometric inquiry that is less dependent on prior theoretical restrictions of the sort that were central to the approach of the cowles commission this development which we call atheoretical macroeconometrics is summarized and evaluated in the current paper it is contrasted with an updated version of the cowles commission approach we conclude that while some of the exercises of atheoretical macroeconometrics are valid those that have attracted the most attention and appear the most innovative exogeneity testing impulse response analysis and policy analysis using estimated vector autoregressions are based on incorrect analysis

income effects of adjustment to a terms of trade disturbance and the demand for adjustment finance abstract this paper shows that when economic adjustment is costly and therefore takes place gradually it is optimal to seek external finance in response to permanent as well as transitory shocks while at the same time adjusting to the disturbance sluggish adjustment also creates an asymmetric relationship between permanent changes in the terms of trade and optimal foreign borrowing that is while a permanent deterioration in the terms of trade generates a demand for foreign loans so would an improvement the paper presents suggestive evidence that the effects may be empirically significant though they arise from effects that are technically second order of magnitude

who should be interviewed in surveys of household income summary this study tests the null hypothesis that it is sufficient to interview only the household head to obtain accurate information on household income results show that using a husband s estimate of his wife s income does not produce statistically reliable results for poverty analysis estimates of the wife s income provided by the husband and wife are in agreement in only 6 of households while limiting interviews to one person has the advantage of reducing the time and expense of household surveys this appears detrimental in terms of accuracy and may lead to incorrect conclusions on the determinants of poverty

the supply of qualified nurses a classical model of labour supply the need to ensure adequate numbers of nurses is a key requirement of the current modernization of the uk nhs however it is unclear how effective wages are as an instrument to maintain or increase the nursing workforce both in terms of absolute numbers and in the number of whole time equivalents this study sets out to estimate a classical model of labour supply for british qualified married or cohabiting nurses and midwives looking at both the participation decision and the hours of work supplied data are from the quarterly labour force survey over the years 1999 2000 participation and hours of work are found to be inelastic with respect to own wage these results suggest that increasing the wage would only have a moderate effect on labour supply interestingly there is no significant statistical difference between having a child of nursery age 3 4 and having a child of school age 5 15 on participation and hours supplied this suggests that recent policy initiatives to increase female labour f

optimal food price stabilization in a small open developing country in poor countries most governments implement policies aiming to stabilize the prices of staple foods which often include storage and trade measures insulating their domestic market from the world market it is of crucial importance to understand the precise motivations and efficiency of those interventions because they can have consequences worldwide this paper addresses those issues by analyzing the case of a small open developing country confronted by shocks to both the crop yield and foreign price in this model government interventions may be justified by the lack of an insurance market for food prices considering this market imperfection the authors design optimal public interventions through trade and storage policies they show that an optimal trade policy largely consists of subsidizing imports and taxing exports which benefits consumers at the expense of producers import subsidies alleviate the non negativity of food storage in other words when stocks are exhausted subsidizing imports prevents domestic price spikes one striking result an optimal storage policy on its own is detrimental to consumers since its stabilizing benefits leak into the world market and it raises the average domestic price by contrast an optimal combination of storage and trade policies results in a powerful stabilizing effect for domestic food prices

extreme dependence in price transmission analysis abstractwe propose a generalized procedure that combines conventional price transmission analysis with copula based dynamic tail dependence to examine price relationships under extreme conditions this approach is used to examine ukrainian wheat markets where export restrictions combined with price surges 2006 2008 and 2010 2012 have contributed to a turbulent market the results indicate that domestic prices were effectively insulated from world price shocks but that a rocket and feathers price relation held between domestic flour and wheat prices these asymmetric price co movements changed with the degree of restrictiveness of the export prohibitions

food prices and poverty do higher food prices help or hinder poverty reduction despite much debate existing research has almost solely relied on simulation models to address this question in this paper world bank poverty estimates are used to systematically test the relationship between changes in poverty and exogenous changes in real domestic food prices the paper uncovers indicative evidence that increases in food prices are associated with reductions in poverty not increases a likely empirical explanation is the relatively strong agricultural supply and wage responses to food price increases and the fact that the majority of the world s poor still heavily rely on agriculture or agriculture related activities to earn a living

time frequency causality and connectedness between international prices of energy food industry agriculture and metals abstract this study analyzes the lead lag relationship between the price indices of energy fuels and each of food industrial inputs agriculture raw materials metals and beverages in the time frequency domain to this end we first use the wavelet coherency and phase differences next we use the diebold and yilmaz 2012 and barunik and krehlik 2017 spillover indices to analyse the connectedness among the set of the price indices under consideration the period of the study is 1990m1 to 2017m5 the wavelet coherency results reveal that there are important and significant relations between the fuel and food prices the fuel and industrial prices and the fuel and metal prices these results also show that there are phase relationships between those paired prices the volatility spillover results indicate that the agricultural sector is the most affected by shocks from the other markets the return series of the industrial input prices at all frequencies appears to be the main source of volatility transmission to the prices of the other commodities over the whole period this finding underlines the relevance of the industrial inputs to policy makers particularly when they design policies to provide incentives related to industrial production

fair trade or trade fair international food trade and cross border macronutrient flows abstract this study examines global food trade from a nutritional perspective paying particular attention to its implications for food security in low income countries by describing food trade in terms of the quantities of three essential macronutrients carbohydrates lipids and proteins embedded in food the analysis goes beyond a simple description of trade values quantities or caloric content as is common in the literature furthermore the study provides estimates of the implicit price of each macronutrient their evolution over time and their implications in terms of north south food trade the data show that over the 1996 2014 period the volume of macronutrients exchanged on international markets has more than doubled with carbohydrates accounting for over 60 of trade flows but proteins and lipids growing at a faster pace proteins were found to be the most expensive macronutrient followed by lipids and carbohydrates in general macronutrients embedded in animal and processed products are more expensive than those in vegetal and unprocessed food the results also suggest that the participation in international food trade has positive effects on low income countries aggregate food availability and food access two pillars of food security indeed low income countries register a net inflow of all macronutrients and take advantage of nutritional arbitrages available on international food markets due to macronutrients price differentials

the sensitivity of an empirical model of married women s hours of work to economic and statistical assumptions this study undertakes a systematic analysis of several theoretic and statistical assumption s used in many empirical models of female labor supply using a singl e data set psid 1975 labor supply data the author is able to replic ate most of the range of estimated income and substitution effects fo und in previous studies in this field he undertakes extensive specif ication tests and finds that most of this range should be rejected du e to statistical and model misspecifications the two most important assumptions appear to be the tobit assumption used to control for sel f selection into the labor force and exogeneity assumptions on the wi fe s wage rate and her labor market experience copyright 1987 by the econometric society

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

structural adjustment to a terms of trade disturbance the role of relative prices abstract this paper investigates the impact of a terms of trade disturbance on a small economy which responds gradually to changes in relative prices the key intertemporal link is as in dornbusch 1983 between the price of nontraded goods the real interest rate savings and the current account if the traded and nontraded goods are bad substitutes in consumption then an improvement in the terms of trade leads to a transitory current account surplus and conversely international capital mobility reduces the impact of a terms of trade disturbance on relative prices and also reduces the speed with which the economy adjusts to the disturbance

co movements in commodity prices a note based on network analysis this article analyses co movements in a wide group of commodity prices during the time period 1992 2010 our methodological approach is based on the correlation matrix and the networks inside through this approach we are able to summarize global interaction and interdependence capturing the existing heterogeneity in the degrees of synchronization between commodity prices our results produce two main findings a we do not observe a persistent increase in the degree of co movement of the commodity prices in our time sample however from mid 2008 to the end of 2009 co movements almost doubled when compared with the average correlation b we observe three groups of commodities which have exhibited similar price dynamics metals oil and grains and oilseeds and which have increased their degree of co movement during the sampled period

a quantile autoregression analysis of price volatility in agricultural markets this paper investigates the dynamics of agricultural price volatility based on a quantile autoregression qar model the qar model provides a flexible representation of the distribution of price and its dynamics the approach is applied to u s wheat and corn markets over the period of 1980 2017 this period is of significant interest as it covers important changes in agricultural policy and increased reliance on markets the price analysis is conducted conditional on stocks held in the previous period we show how increasing previous stocks shift the price distribution to the left and decreases the odds of facing price spikes by shifting down the upper tail of the price distribution our analysis also examines the effects of changing public stocks on prices for both wheat and corn this reflects changing agricultural policy contrasting the 1980s when public stocks were relatively high with the post 2005 period when public stocks became zero we document how higher public stock ratio during the previous period did not lower the odds of facing price spikes applied to the wheat and corn markets we also uncover evidence of local dynamic instability in the upper tail of the price distribution suggesting that price instability becomes more pronounced when previous stocks are low

food prices and the multiplier effect of trade policy this work studies the relationship between trade policy and food prices we show that when individuals are loss averse governments may use trade policy to shield the domestic economy from large food price shocks this creates a complementarity between the price of food in international markets and trade policy specifically unilateral actions give rise to a multiplier effect when a shock drives up the price of food exporters respond by imposing restrictions while importers wind down protection thus exacerbating the initial shock and soliciting further trade policy activism we test the key prediction of the theory with a new dataset that comprises monthly information on trade measures across 77 countries and 32 food products for the period 2008 11 finding evidence of a multiplier effect in food trade policy these findings contribute to inform the broader debate on the proper regulation of food trade policy within the multilateral trading system

nurses labor supply participation hours of work and discontinuities in the supply function this paper presents the results of a formal labor supply model for nurses in great britain it corrects for misspecification and sample selection bias which affected earlier research on women s labor supply generally in the united kingdom and tests for the existence of discontinuities in the supply curve of nurses estimates of labor market participation elasticities with respect to the wage rate non labor income and to the costs incurred through work are reported for nurses qualified and unqualified participation is found to be highly responsive to wage changes and some discontinuity is found in the supply function

are smallholder farmers better or worse off from an increase in the international price of cereals citation nakelse t dalton t j hendricks n p hodjo m 2018 are smallholder farmers better or worse off from an increase in the international price of cereals food policy 79 213 223 https doi org 10 1016 j foodpol 2018 07 006

three bubbles and a panic an explanatory review of recent food commodity price events abstract this paper is a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007 2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases extracted from a report to the chief scientific advisor to her majesty s government thirtle c piesse j 2008 an explanatory review of the world food commodity price events of 2007 2008 a report to the chief scientific advisor department for innovation universities and skills london the historical background shows that the price spike was much less severe than in the 1970s the conventional wisdom that prices of the main food commodities were falling prior to 2006 is questioned most ceased falling and were quite stable from the 1980s the paper separates the causes of the spike from the underlying changes driving the long run trends the literature on the causes of the spike is critically reviewed and summarised there is a reasonably broad consensus on most of the causes but much less on the impact of the depreciation of the us dollar there are also concluding speculations on the future

connected we stand a network perspective on trade and global food security we analyze the link between virtual water trade that is the flow of water embodied in the international trade of agricultural goods and vulnerability to external shocks from the vantage point of network analysis while a large body of work has shown that virtual water trade can enhance water saving on a global scale being especially beneficial to arid countries there are increasing concerns that openness makes countries more dependent on foreign food suppliers and in this way more prone to external shocks our evidence reveals that the increased globalization witnessed in the last three decades is not associated with the increased frequency of adverse shocks in food production furthermore building on recent advances in network analysis that connect the stability of a complex system to its topological features we find that the world is more interconnected but not necessarily less stable

biofuel production and its impact on food security in low and middle income countries implications for the post 2015 sustainable development goals abstract the post 2015 sustainable development goals sdgs aim to strengthen the achievements of the millennium development goals mdgs there are 17 sdgs the first two tackle ending poverty and hunger as well as food insecurity under nutrition and sustainable agriculture to address these goals requires eradicating chronic hunger this paper examines challenges associated with biofuel production and how they relate to sdgs and their targets we mainly focus on challenges associated with biofuel production not adequately addressed in the sdgs it draws from a range of peer reviewed and grey literature to advance the understanding of how biofuel production will impact the post 2015 development agenda the findings suggest that increasing use of food crops to produce biofuels in the united states european union japan and brazil has been one important element in explaining the steady rise in staple food prices since 2000 while this is a potential threat to food and nutrition security in low and middle income countries biofuel production also offers significant opportunities in low income countries there are several challenges to the development and harnessing of biofuels these include 1 the interaction between biofuel production and climate change 2 biofuel production and foreignisation of land 3 food wastage 4 poor governance and limited production capacity 5 biofuel production within a weak and fragmented policy framework 6 biofuel production land tenure and socio economic impacts 7 biofuel production and conflicts and 8 biofuel production and deforestation for the post 2015 sustainable development agenda to have an impact strong actions are required to protect rural communities as well as nurture the biofuels industry this should be matched by commensurate investments in food and nutrition security and transparent public private partnerships this calls for strong and pro poor policies on feedstock farming processing and trading such policies must address the rhetoric of stakeholder participation in land use management

reflections on food crises past abstract world food crises are relatively rare events occurring roughly three times a century but they also tend to be regular events every three decades or so suggesting there is an underlying cyclical cause if so far sighted donor and government investments in raising agricultural productivity and policies on behalf of stable food production and prices might go a long way to preventing food crises in the future preventing food crises rather than trying to cope after the fact with their impact on the poor is the only way to avoid substantial perhaps permanent damage to the welfare of poor households lessons from the world food crises in 1972 73 and in 2007 08 especially lessons from how the world rice market functioned point the way toward improved food policy management at national and international levels in the future

nurses labour supply elasticities the importance of accounting for extensive margins abstract we estimate a multi sector model of nursing qualification holders labour supply in different occupations a structural approach allows us to model the labour force participation decision the occupational and shift type choice and the decision about hours worked as a joint outcome following from maximising a utility function disutility from work is allowed to vary by occupation and also by shift type in the utility function our results suggest that average wage elasticities might be higher than previous research has found this is mainly due to the effect of wages on the decision to enter or exit the profession which was not included in the previous literature rather than from its effect on increased working hours for those who already work in the profession

commodity prices and money lessons from international finance many commodity prices have been falling rapidly recently as of thursday 31 july 1984 the journal of commerce s index for raw industrial materials had declined 10 relative to march and 20 relative to its peak value in 1980 in the current lull between political conventions this counts as something of a hot topic in washington some supply siders like alan reynolds from jude wanniski s firm polyconomics are warning that the large decline in commodity prices is signalling a general deflation throughout the economy and the possibility of widespread defaults reminiscent of the 1930s congressman jack kemp wants the federal reserve board to adopt a monetary policy rule that would automatically expand whenever commodity prices are low as now and automatically contract whenever commodity prices are high as in the late 1970s there has even been talk about embodying such a monetary rule as a plank in the republican party platform in dallas this month seldom before have steel scrap cotton and hides seemed so glamorous my topic today is the determination of the prices of basic commodities everything from agricultural commodities to the gold and other metals so precious to the supply siders

the impact of exchange rates and developing country debt on commodity prices a major feature of the international economy over the past decade has been the swings in the value of the us dollar the dollar fell to a historically low level in the late i970s but rose sharply over the period i982 4 by the beginning of i985 the dollar was generally considered to be over valued by between 2o and 40 since i985 there has been a depreciation of over one third these wide fluctuations in the value of the dollar have had implications for all major traded goods this paper focuses on the effects of changes in the value of the dollar on primary commodity prices and possible interactions between ldc indebtedness and these effects a rise fall in the value of the dollar must be expected to result in a fall rise in dollar commodity prices ridler and yandle i972 proposed a simple comparative static single commodity model to analyse the effects of exchange rate changes on the price of an individual primary commodity they showed that the commodity price change would be given by the change in an appropriately weighted exchange rate index write the price of commodityj as

do labour supply and demand curves exist the objective of this paper is to show that circumstantial and empirical evidence for the existence of labour supply and demand curves is at best inconclusive and at worst casts doubt on their existence because virtually all orthodox models of labour markets simple and complex are built upon the foundation stones of labour supply and demand curves these models lack empirically supported foundations orthodox labour economists must therefore either provide stronger evidence or stop using labour supply and demand curves as the foundation stones of their models the conclusion discusses implications for future orthodox and heterodox labour economics

explaining grain and oilseed price volatility the role of export restrictions this study examines the impact that export restrictions have had on price volatility food price volatility causes planning problems for policy makers and is disruptive to the food supply chain an increasingly common response to stabilizing domestic prices is to implement export restrictions however if the country is a large enough exporter the restriction can exacerbate global price volatility using price data on maize wheat rice and soy we estimate the effect of export taxes and quantitative restrictions as well as other macroeconomic variables on price volatility first we use a univariate structural time series approach to remove regularities such as cycles and trends to yield an estimate of filtered price volatilities second we regress the estimated volatilities from the first stage on a set of explanatory variables using a generalized method of moments gmm approach the results from the gmm regression show that export restrictions implemented between 2006 and 2011 increased price volatility for wheat and rice but not maize and soybean simulation results show that the contribution of export restrictions to price volatility is the same order of magnitude as key macroeconomic variables