Global Food Price Volatility and Spikes: an Overview of Costs, Causes, and Solutions

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Global Food Price Volatility and Spikes: an Overview of Costs, Causes, and Solutions A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics von Braun, Joachim; Tadesse, Getaw Working Paper Global food price volatility and spikes: An overview of costs, causes, and solutions ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy, No. 161 Provided in Cooperation with: Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung / Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn Suggested Citation: von Braun, Joachim; Tadesse, Getaw (2012) : Global food price volatility and spikes: An overview of costs, causes, and solutions, ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy, No. 161, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/84801 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 161 Joachim von Braun and Getaw Tadesse Global Food Price Volatility and Spikes: An Overview of Costs, Causes, and Solutions Bonn, January 2012 The CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH (ZEF) was established in 1995 as an international, interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Bonn. Research and teaching at ZEF addresses political, economic and ecological development problems. ZEF closely cooperates with national and international partners in research and development organizations. For information, see: www.zef.de. ZEF – Discussion Papers on Development Policy are intended to stimulate discussion among researchers, practitioners and policy makers on current and emerging development issues. Each paper has been exposed to an internal discussion within the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and an external review. The papers mostly reflect work in progress. The Editorial Committee of the ZEF – DISCUSSION PAPERS ON DEVELOPMENT POLICY include Joachim von Braun (Chair), Solvey Gerke, and Manfred Denich. Joachim von Braun and Getaw Tadesse, Global Food Price Volatility and Spikes: An Overview of Costs, Causes, and Solutions, ZEF- Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 161, Center for Development Research, Bonn, January 2012, pp. 42. ISSN: 1436-9931 Published by: Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF) Center for Development Research Walter-Flex-Straße 3 D – 53113 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-73-1861 Fax: +49-228-73-1869 E-Mail: [email protected] www.zef.de The authors: Joachim von Braun, Center for Development Research (ZEF). Contact: jvonbraun@uni- bonn.de Getaw Tadesse, formerly with Center for Development Research (ZEF), now with IFPRI, Ethiopia. Contact: [email protected] ii Contents Tables ............................................................................................................................................... v Figures .............................................................................................................................................. v Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... vi Summary ........................................................................................................................................ vii 1. Global food price dynamics ...................................................................................................... 1 The state of international food prices ........................................................................................... 1 Food price changes ........................................................................................................................ 3 Nonlinearity in global food price dynamics ................................................................................... 5 2. Price volatility and the poor ...................................................................................................... 6 Underlying factors and their diverse effects ................................................................................. 6 Empirical estimates on poverty and hunger .................................................................................. 8 Malnutrition impact ....................................................................................................................... 9 3. Macroeconomic impacts of food prices ................................................................................. 12 Inflation and public finance ......................................................................................................... 12 Foreign exchange ......................................................................................................................... 13 Distortions and misallocations ..................................................................................................... 13 Political unrests ............................................................................................................................ 14 4. Supply and demand shocks ..................................................................................................... 16 Global food price drivers .............................................................................................................. 16 Supply shocks ............................................................................................................................... 17 Biofuel demand ............................................................................................................................ 19 5. Food stocks and trade policies ................................................................................................ 22 Stocks and food prices ................................................................................................................. 22 Trade policies ............................................................................................................................... 22 6. Speculation in commodity futures .......................................................................................... 24 The speculation effect ................................................................................................................. 24 Why does the volume of futures trading affect the futures price? ............................................. 25 Empirical evidence on the speculation effect .............................................................................. 27 Regulating speculation ................................................................................................................. 29 7. Volatility and spike effects of supply, demand, and market shocks ...................................... 30 Effects on food price spikes ......................................................................................................... 30 Effects on volatility....................................................................................................................... 32 iii 8. Policies and further research .................................................................................................. 34 Policies ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Further research .......................................................................................................................... 36 References ...................................................................................................................................... 37 iv Tables Table 1 - The relationship between price levels and price spikes for maize and wheat, January 1986– June 2011 ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Table 2 - Share of food expenditures in total expenditures (%) ............................................................. 7 Table 3 - Weight of food in CPI in some developing countries ............................................................. 12 Table 4 - Changes in cereal trade, 2002–04 to 2008 ............................................................................. 14 Table 5 - Correlations between supply shocks and volatility of prices ................................................. 18 Table 6 - Changes in cereal area and production (three-year average
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