This paper evaluates the impact of coffee sector reforms during late 1980s and early 1990s on coffee growers in the main coffee producing countries. Earlier evidence suggests that the reforms increased the share of producer prices in the world price of coffee. This hypothesis is tested in the...

In 1995, 57 countries depended on three commodities for more than half their exports, reports UNCTAD. And commodities, fuels, grains, and oilseeds are important imports for several countries. The notorious volatility of commodity prices is a major source of instability and uncertainty in...

Cash prices for wheat in Poland are not closely related to futures prices in Chicago and London, for several reasons: differences in seasonality, fluctuations in exchange rate, poor dissemination of information in Poland, and most important the Polish government's intervention in wheat markets....

The authors extend the widely used Newbery and Stiglitz (1981) approach to measuring welfare changes from commodity price stabilization to a general equilibrium setting. They derive the welfare changes in terms of net consumer and producer surplus, rather than in terms of producer income as in...

This paper emphasizes the fiscal underpinnings of the inflationary process and those particular dynamics when a dual price system is present. In particular, it explores the links between price controls and decontrols and the government budget, mainly through the flow of subsidies to either...

The author evaluates how much relative price shifts affected inflation in Poland between 1989 and 1997. He uses a theoretical model that predicts a positive relationship between variance and skewness in the distribution of relative price changes and the general inflation rate. Regressions...

Venezuela's agricultural sector is heavily regulated and protected. As part of structural adjustment, the government is considering major reform of its agricultural trade policies. The strategy is to introduce competition into the economy by removing government price controls and liberalizing...

The three goals of recent agricultural pricing policies in Mexico for maize have been to raise farm income and crop profitability by boosting domestic prices through trade restrictions, to provide some price certainty at planting time, and to reduce year-to-year variations in maize prices. The...

This paper analyzes the immediate, delayed and group responses of 20 commodity prices in four commodity groups (foods and livestock, crops, energy and metals) to macroeconomic"news"(unexpected announcements) in the United States between 1985 and 1989. It finds that macroeconomic news generally...

Casual observation leads to the conclusion that stabilization funds tend to be short-lived. While it may be that some funds have failed due to poor management or unwarranted political interventions, the stochastic components of commodity prices can generate insurmountable difficulties for even...