Paper to be presented at the Comesa policy seminar“Food price variability: Causes, consequences, and policy options"on 25-26 January 2010 in Maputo, Mozambiqueunder the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Markets Project (AAMP)

Most Americans consume diets that do not meet Federal dietary recommendations. A common explanation is that healthier foods are more expensive than less healthy foods. To investigate this assumption, the authors compare prices of healthy and less healthy foods using three different price...

Social critics have taken aim at modern production agriculture using a common theme: many food, health, and environmental problems are explained by corporate farms, agribusinesses, and fast-food restaurants failing to account for the full costs of their actions. How accurate is this diagnosis?...

Using a sample comprising nearly a quarter of a million weekly prices from the largest seven supermarket chains in the UK, we present statistical evidence on two pricing practices that have attracted public interest. Analysing price dynamics before and after periods of promotional discounting...

Over the past 10 years, the growth of nontraditional retail food outlets has transformed the food market landscape, increasing the variety of shopping and food options available to consumers, as well as price variation in retail food markets. This report focuses on these dynamics and how they...

USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) uses different economic models to estimate the impact of higher input prices on consumer food prices. The present study compares three ERS models. In the first two models, neither consumers nor food producers respond to market prices. We refer to these two...

Mary Shelman discusses forces driving higher food prices and some of the changes which are impacting the global food supply chain. Shelman coordinates Harvard Business School’s premier Agribusiness Seminar attended annually by more than 200 CEOs and top managers from global firms. She...

This report provides a detailed description of the methodology used to construct ERS’s Quarterly Food-at-Home Price Database (Q-FAHPD). As the name suggest, these data provide quarterly observations on the mean price of 52 food categories for specific U.S. markets. We provide a description of...

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...