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Did the Fertilizer Cartel Cause the Food Crisis?

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  • Gnutzmann, Hinnerk
  • Spiewanowski, Piotr

Abstract

Food commodity prices escalated during the 2007/2008 food crisis, and have scarcely fallen since. We show that high fertilizer prices, driven by the formation of an international export cartel as well as high energy prices, explains the majority of the recent price spikes. In particular, we estimate the pure fertilizer cartel effect explains up to 50% of crisis food price increases. While population growth, biofuels, high energy prices and financial speculation doubtlessly put stress on food markets, our results help to understand the severity and sudden emergence of the crisis and suggest avenues to prevent its repetition.

Suggested Citation

  • Gnutzmann, Hinnerk & Spiewanowski, Piotr, 2016. "Did the Fertilizer Cartel Cause the Food Crisis?," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145777, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145777
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    Cited by:

    1. Roberts Simon, 2017. "Working Paper 255 - Competition and industrial policies relating to food production in southern Africa," Working Paper Series 2366, African Development Bank.
    2. Akash Malhotra & Mayank Maloo, 2017. "Understanding food inflation in India: A Machine Learning approach," Papers 1701.08789, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Commodity Market

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