Food price spikes and poor, small economies: What role for trade policies?

This paper analyses the trade-off between price distortions and reduced volatility when governments intervened in agricultural and food markets during the recent food price spikes and concludes that there is much room for policy improvement. The authors develop a model to derive how much distortions a government would introduce when it cares about price stability in a situation with limited policy options and show that there is a trade-off and identify the optimal combination of distortions and stability for given international price shocks and interest groups preferences for stability. »

This article investigates how other indicators than just international food price spikes influence food price volatility and child malnutrition in Niger and Malawi. In recent times, considerable attention has been paid to the nutritional impact of the sharp hikes in the international food prices which took place in 2007–8 and 2010–11. While understandable, this growing focus has perhaps obscured the impact of other variables affecting malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. »