Dramatically increased international agricultural commodity prices from 2007 to mid-2008 brought food inflation and greater incidence of poverty and malnutrition to developing countries. Higher food prices in 2011 threaten to repeat that crisis. The international community responded strongly to...

This paper identifies eight political economy factors that influenced governments' policy choices during the most recent global food price crisis. To explain the variety of responses and the policy failures, a framework is proposed that locates policies along the twin dimensions of unitary vs....

India's policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced fertilizer subsidies. The government launched the...

During the recent food crisis, developing countries responded with a wide variety of policy responses to protect their population. Understanding the policy-making process in developing countries is important to know why such policy responses are made and how various actors and players shape up...

Following an overview on the fast changing global context of agriculture, and food and nutrition security, this paper provides a framework for identifying the set of essential international public goods for a well-functioning world agriculture and food system: natural resource management related...

Rice is a key agricultural commodity in Vietnam, and the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector remains a major source of employment and value addition. This paper uses episodes of rice price volatility to understand how the interplay of market forces and political economy factors caused...

Since 2006, global prices and price volatility for foodgrain commodities have spiked frequently and dramatically. Such spikes have had the heaviest economic and social impact on developing nations, where agriculture accounts for a sizable portion of economic activity. We demonstrate how US...

The overall goal of this paper is to analyse the political economy of food price policies in China during the global food crisis. The results show that given China's unique economic and political context and the nature of its agricultural markets, the government's reaction to the crisis was...

The study focuses on the period 2004-09 during which Egypt experienced food crisis. The political economy context on how the government responded to the crisis is analysed while pinpointing to what extent there was a pass-through effect from international to domestic prices. The complexity of...

This paper argues that the effects of the food price crisis of 2007-08 put pressure on two variables that are of central importance to the Brazilian government: inflation and social inclusion. We describe how political institutions in Brazil in the past 25 years have given rise to a...