IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adl/wpaper/2009-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asia's Role in Stabilizing Food and Agricultural Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Kym Anderson

    (School of Economics, University of Adelaide)

Abstract

Every decade or so, food becomes newsworthy globally because of a price spike, either upwards (hurting consumers, as in 1973 and 2008) or downwards (hurting farmers in open economies, as in 1986). Most such price spikes are a consequence of major policy shifts, since local weather-induced supply shocks in a multi-country trading world tend to offset each other. Fluctuations in international food prices are exacerbated by trade restrictions that vary with those prices, and are worst for the most-insulated markets such as rice. Asian rice policies thus contribute to world food price instability. More broadly, however, the gradual reduction in anti-agricultural and anti-trade policies in many Asian emerging economies in the past quarter-century has contributed very substantially to global economic development and poverty alleviation. After examining how large the fluctuations in real international prices for food are relative to those for other primary products, this paper examines the extent of opening up of agricultural markets in Asia relative to other developing economies. It then examines what could be done by governments in Asia and elsewhere to achieve more efficient and equitable outcomes for food markets in the future that are both growth enhancing and poverty alleviating.

Suggested Citation

  • Kym Anderson, 2009. "Asia's Role in Stabilizing Food and Agricultural Prices," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2009-06, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
  • Handle: RePEc:adl:wpaper:2009-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.adelaide.edu.au/economics/papers/doc/wp2009-06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28241.
    2. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda, 2012. "Targeted Subsidies and Private Market Participation: An Assessment of Fertilizer Demand in Nigeria:," IFPRI discussion papers 1194, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    3. Shafaeddin, Mehdi, 2010. "Trade liberalization, industrialization and development; experience of recent decades," MPRA Paper 26355, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Seung-Whan Choi & James A. Piazza, 2017. "Foreign Military Interventions and Suicide Attacks," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(2), pages 271-297, February.
    5. Minh Quang Dao, 2012. "Government expenditure and growth in developing countries," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 12(1), pages 77-82, January.
    6. Nicole Grunewald & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2009. "Driving Factors of Carbon Dioxide Emissions and the Impact from Kyoto Protocol," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 190, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    7. David M. Waguespack & Robert Salomon, 2016. "Quality, Subjectivity, and Sustained Superior Performance at the Olympic Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 286-300, January.
    8. Nicola Banks, 2014. "What works for young people's development? A Case Study of BRAC's Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescent Girls programme in Uganda and Tanzania," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 21214, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    9. Andreas Steiner, 2010. "Central Banks’ Dilemma: Reserve Accumulation, Inflation and Financial Instability," IEER Working Papers 84, Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University.
    10. James Roumasset & Christopher Wada, 2012. "The Economics of Groundwater," Working Papers 201211, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    11. Rosta, Miklós, 2013. "New Public Management: opportunity for the Centre, thread for the Periphery," MPRA Paper 68474, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Hübler, Michael, 2011. "Technology diffusion under contraction and convergence: A CGE analysis of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 131-142, January.
    13. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    14. Richens, Peter, 2009. "The economic legacies of the ‘thin white line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa," Economic History Working Papers 27879, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    15. James, Jennifer S. & Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M., 2008. "Agricultural R&D Policy: A Tragedy of the International Commons," Staff Papers 43094, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    16. Vrachimis Konstantinos & Zachariadis Marios, 2013. "A contribution to the empirics of welfare growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 213-244, April.
    17. Hoon Lee & Joseph L. Staats & Glen Biglaiser, 2012. "The importance of legal systems for portfolio investment in the developing world," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 339-358, December.
    18. Simone Bertoli & Jesus Fernandez-Huertas Moraga & Francesc Ortega, 2011. "Immigration Policies and the Ecuadorian Exodus," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 57-76, March.
    19. Ewout Frankema & Marlous van Waijenburg, 2011. "African Real Wages in Asian Perspective, 1880-1940," Working Papers 0002, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    20. Abul Shamsuddin & Jae H. Kim, 2010. "Short‐Horizon Return Predictability in International Equity Markets," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 469-484, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    food price stabilization; distorted agricultural incentives; farm trade policy reforms; biofuels; Asian agricultural development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • 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; Animal Welfare Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:adl:wpaper:2009-06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Qazi Haque (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decadau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.