Remoteness and Food Price Vulnerability: Evidence from International Oil Price Shocks in Sub-Saharan African Maize Markets

Many areas in sub-Saharan Africa remain poorly connected to reliable road networks, while domestic food distribution relies heavily on road transport. Meanwhile, because most countries import refined fuel, shocks in global oil markets may translate into higher inland transport frictions and food prices, especially in remote markets. We examine how road-network remoteness shapes the transmission of international oil prices into local maize prices across 19 countries in subSaharan Africa. The analysis uses monthly market-level data from January 2021 to December 2023, a period that includes the sharp increase in international oil prices following the 2022 RussiaUkraine war. We measure market-level remoteness exposure by interacting road-network distance to ports with international oil prices. To address endogeneity concerns, we use an IV strategy that instruments remoteness exposure with proximity to straight lines connecting major mines and ports active before 2000, interacted with oil supply news shocks. The IV estimates imply that when international oil prices increased from $74 to $123 per barrel (as it did between December 2021 and June 2022), local maize prices would be 30.343% higher in a market located 500 km farther from ports than in an otherwise comparable market closer to ports. The estimated effect is stronger in areas with poorer agricultural production conditions, where weaker local production buffers make maize prices more vulnerable to oil price shocks in remote markets. As an extension, contemporaneous remoteness exposure is associated with higher local conflict events and fatalities, while lagged exposure has no detectable effect. These results highlight the need to account for road-network remoteness and local production buffers when assessing how global energy shocks translate into local food price vulnerability