Food commodity prices escalated during the 2007/2008 food crisis, and have scarcely fallen since. We show that high fertilizer prices, driven by the formation of an international export cartel as well as high energy prices, explains the majority of the recent price spikes. In particular, we...

This paper provides new evidence on how imperfectly competitive markets with excess capacity mitigate the adverse impact of supply shocks on prices. We study the potash market, which is controlled by a syndicate that assigns output quotas in proportion to production capacity of its members. This...

Food commodity prices escalated during the 2007/2008 food crisis, and have scarcely fallen since. We show that high fertilizer prices, driven by the formation of an international export cartel as well as high energy prices, explains the majority of the recent price spikes. In particular, we...

Since the 2008 Food Crisis, the link between agriculture and energy has become contentious. Agriculture consumes energy both directly, through oil products, and indirectly, through fertilizer. Since fertilizer cost depends on natural gas prices, we exploit variations in the oil/gas spread to...

Under EU Air Passenger Rights legislation (“EC261”), carriers must provide assistance and cash compensation to passengers in case of long delay. We study whether the regulation reduces flight delay. EC261 applies uniformly to flights departing from the EU, but covers only EU carriers on...