International prices of most staple food commodities in 2008 reached a remarkable level that had not been seen since late 1970’s. Food commodity prices are projected to remain on higher levels over the next decade, supported by firm demand, unfavorable weather conditions, slowing growth in...

We empirically address the implications of biofuel policy regarding major grains, to the subsequent evolution of the markets for calories from the three major grains, maize, wheat and rice. The implied market variables, namely, market price, consumption, and stocks, using a structurally...

This paper builds a model determining optimal capacities of diversion dams or water transfer projects. The model incorporates stochastic inflows to the dams and the role of the dam capacity in reducing overflows, and gives a closed-form expression of the marginal benefit of capacities....

To date there is extremely limited knowledge of the economic consequences of post-harvest losses for smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa. Major contributors to economic losses are price penalties for poor quality marketed grain. This study investigates farm-gate level discounts demanded by rural...

In addition to multilateral trade agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the world has seen a remarkable proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the last two decades. This study investigates the impacts of these multilateral and regional trade institutions on food...

The study investigates whether African agricultural efficiency levels has been improving or not and what drives its over the years based on 442 frontier studies using meta-regression analysis. The results show that mean efficiency estimates from studies decrease significantly as year of survey...

This study examined the effects of China’s grain subsidy program, the largest food self-sufficiency project in the developing countries, on grain-sown areas within a context of liquidity constraints. A large household level panel was used to evaluate how the subsidy affects the cultivation...

We assess the relative impacts of receiving cash versus food transfers using a randomized design. Drawing on data collected in eastern Niger, we find that households randomized to receive a food basket experienced larger, positive impact on measures of food consumption and diet quality than...

The Global Food Price Crisis of 2007-2011 had mixed effects on the poor in developing nations. By some estimates, the Crisis lifted nearly 24 million poor farmers out of poverty; however, it also cast 68 million net food buyers into poverty. In this paper, we analyze the distributional impacts...