In the long view, recent grain price volatility is not anomalous. Wheat, rice, and maize are highly substitutable in the global market for calories, and when aggregate stocks decline to minimal feasible levels, prices become highly sensitive to small shocks, consistent with storage models. In...

This report presents the short- and long-run behavior of primary commodity prices and the implications of movements in these prices for developing countries. Most earlier studies of the long-term trend in the net barter terms of trade between primary commodities and manufactures have suffered...

Countries that depend on a single primary export for their foreign earnings are likely to experience sharp fluctuations in export earnings and their underlying wealth, because of the instability of all primary commodity markets. As part of structural adjustment, several countries have...