IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Managing food price volatility in a large open country : the case of wheat in India

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Gouel,Christophe
  • Gautam,Madhur
  • Martin,William J.

Abstract

India has pursued an active food security policy for many years, using a combination of trade policy interventions, public distribution of food staples, and assistance to farmers through minimum support prices defended by public stocks. This policy has been quite successful in stabilizing staple food prices, but at a high cost, and with potential risks of unmanageable stock accumulation. Based on a rational expectations storage model representing the Indian wheat market and its relation to the rest of the world, this paper analyzes the cost and welfare implications of this policy and unpacks the contribution of its different elements. To analyze alternative policies, social welfare is assumed to include an objective of price stabilization and optimal policies corresponding to this objective are assessed. Considering fully optimal policies under commitment as well as optimal simple rules, it is shown that adopting simple rules can achieve most of the gains from fully optimal policies, with both potentially allowing for lower stockholding levels and costs.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/265831467991973913/pdf/WPS7551.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 7551.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 02 Feb 2016
Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7551
Contact details of provider: Postal:
1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433

Phone: (202) 477-1234
Web page: http://www.worldbank.org/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Debt Markets; Access to Markets; Economic Theory&Research; Emerging Markets; Markets and Market Access;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please 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.:

as
in new window


  1. Christophe Gouel, 2013. "Rules versus Discretion in Food Storage Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1029-1044.
  2. Christophe Gouel & Sébastien Jean, 2015. "Optimal Food Price Stabilization in a Small Open Developing Country," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 29(1), pages 72-101.
  3. Will Martin & Kym Anderson, 2012. "Export Restrictions and Price Insulation During Commodity Price Booms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(2), pages 422-427.
  4. Ganesh-Kumar, A. & Mehta, Rajesh & Pullabhotla, Hemant & Prasad, Sanjay K. & Ganguly, Kavery & Gulati, Ashok, 2012. "Demand and supply of cereals in India: 2010-2025:," IFPRI discussion papers 1158, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
  5. Albert Marcet & Ramon Marimon, 1994. "Recursive contracts," Economics Working Papers 337, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 1998.
  6. Christophe Gouel, 2014. "Food Price Volatility and Domestic Stabilization Policies in Developing Countries," NBER Chapters,in: The Economics of Food Price Volatility, pages 261-306 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Srinivasan, P. V. & Jha, Shikha, 2001. "Liberalized trade and domestic price stability. The case of rice and wheat in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 417-441, August.
  8. Sandmo, Agnar, 1971. "On the Theory of the Competitive Firm under Price Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 65-73, March.
  9. Donald F. Larson & Julian Lampietti & Christophe Gouel & Carlo Cafiero & John Roberts, 2014. "Food Security and Storage in the Middle East and North Africa," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 28(1), pages 48-73.
  10. Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker, 2013. "Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2265-2295, October.
  11. Andrew Coleman, 2009. "Storage, Slow Transport, and the Law of One Price: Theory with Evidence from Nineteenth-Century U.S. Corn Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 332-350, May.
  12. Muhammad, Andrew & Meade, Birgit Gisela Saager, 2011. "International Evidence on Food Consumption Patterns: An Update Using 2005 International Comparison Program Data," Technical Bulletins 120252, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
  13. Gouel, Christophe, 2013. "Optimal food price stabilisation policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 118-134.
  14. Turnovsky, Stephen J & Shalit, Haim & Schmitz, Andrew, 1980. "Consumer's Surplus, Price Instability, and Consumer Welfare," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 135-152, January.
  15. Pursell, Garry & Gulati, Ashok & Gupta, Kanupriya, 2007. "Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in India," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper 48483, World Bank.
  16. James G. MacKinnon, 1990. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests," Working Papers 1227, Queen's University, Department of Economics.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. McCorriston, Steve & MacLaren, Donald, 2016. "Parastatals as instruments of government policy: The Food Corporation of India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 53-62.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7551. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.