This discussion is a review and critique of the three papers in the 2012 Southern Agricultural Economics Association invited paper session titled Causes of Agricultural and Food Price Inflation and Volatility.

The effects of population, income, prices of major inputs, and exchange rate of the U.S. dollar on the prices of three key agricultural and food commodities (feed grains, oilseed, and fruits) for 13 low-income countries and seven middle-income countries were evaluated. Given the short time...

Stochastic index theory views each commodity price change as an independent observation on the rate of inflation that can be estimated by averaging over all prices. Our methodology estimates both the overall rate of inflation and relative price changes along with standard errors.

The effects of biofuel production on commodity prices and their transmission to retail food prices are discussed. Factors driving higher commodity prices are tight global supplies and increased demand of corn ethanol in the short term. Evidence suggests that higher corn prices contribute to food...

This article investigates the extent to which national brand and private label (store brand) prices behave differently as food price inflation changes. Empirical tests using a range of indices support the hypotheses that rising commodity and fuel prices lead to relatively larger surges in...