Export Restrictions and Price Insulation During Commodity Price Booms
Abstract
For individual countries, variable trade barriers can be used to reduce the volatility of domestic relative to world prices. If this is done by countries accounting for a large share of the market, its effect is offset by increases in world price volatility. This study shows the nature of the resulting collective action problem, with the policy being ineffective on average in stabilizing domestic prices while increasing the volatility of the income transfers from terms-of-trade changes. A simple approach to assessing the contribution of insulation to the price increases is developed and used with new estimates of agricultural distortions to assess its contribution to the price spikes in 1972-74 and 2006-08 for rice and wheat. The analysis suggests that 45 percent of the increase in rice prices in 2006-08, and 30 percent of the increase in wheat prices, was due to insulating behavior. One sign of progress since 1972-74 was a substantial reduction in the extent of price-insulating behavior by the industrial countries. This provides little stabilizing benefit in the rice market because countries not classifying themselves at the World Trade Organization as developing account for only 3 percent of world rice consumption. But it does offer some benefit for the wheat market where non-developing countries account for 27 percent of consumption.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in its journal American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
Volume (Year): 94 (2012)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 422-427
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Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Anderson, Kym & Martin, Will, 2011. "Export Restrictions and Price Insulation During Commodity Price Booms," CEPR Discussion Papers 8494, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Martin, Will & Anderson, Kym, 2011. "Export restrictions and price insulation during commodity price booms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5645, The World Bank.
- F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
- Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Global Commodity Crises
- Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade
- Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Tyers,Rod & Anderson,Kym, 1992.
"Disarray in World Food Markets,"
Cambridge Books,
Cambridge University Press, number 9780521351058.
- Tyers,Rod & Anderson,Kym, 2011. "Disarray in World Food Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521172318.
- Bouet, Antoine & Laborde Debucquet, David, 2010. "Economics of export taxation in a context of food crisis," IFPRI discussion papers 994, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
- Anderson, Kym & Croser, Johanna L. & Sandri, Damiano & Valenzuela, Ernesto, 2009.
"Agricultural Distortion Patterns Since the 1950s: What Needs Explaining?,"
Agricultural Distortions Working Paper
50305, World Bank.
- Kym Anderson & Johanna Croser & Damiano Sandri & Ernesto Valenzuela, 2010. "Agricultural Distortion Patterns Since the 1950s: What Needs Explaining?," Centre for International Economic Studies Working Papers 2010-13, University of Adelaide, Centre for International Economic Studies.
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Blog mentions
As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:- Coordination Failure, Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, and Rising Food Prices
by Marc F. Bellemare in Marc f. bellemare on 2012-01-05 10:00:47
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