In 1968, the government initiated a smallholder tea development program in which all aspects of smallholder tea marketing and trade were turned over to the Tanzania Tea Authority which assumed a wide array of responsibilities. The Authority promoted smallholder tea production. Most of the...

The prices of 27 internationally traded commodities are decomposed into transitory and permanent shocks by applying an ideal band-pass filter to monthly data from 1970-2020. The two types of shocks contributed roughly equally to price variations, but with wide heterogeneity. Permanent shocks...

We examine the drivers of monthly changes in maize prices across 18 Tanzanian markets. Local prices respond three to four times faster to the main regional market (Nairobi) than to the international benchmark (US Gulf). More importantly, shocks from Nairobi account for only one third of the...

Previous sharp oil price declines have been accompanied by elevated ex-post volatility. In contrast, volatility was much less elevated during the oil price crash in 2014/15. We provide evidence that oil prices declined in a relatively measured manner during 2014/15, with a dispersion of price...

Commodity markets are integral to the global economy. Understanding what drives developments of these markets is critical to the design of policy frameworks that facilitate the economic objectives of sustainable growth, inflation stability, poverty reduction, food security, and the mitigation of...

The recent commodity boom was the longest and broadest of the post-World War II period. Although most prices have declined sharply since their mid-2008 peak, they are still considerably higher than 2003, the beginning of the boom. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the recent boom...

An econometric methodology for estimating both the equilibrium real exchange rate and the degree of exchange-rate misalignment.Estimating the degree of exchange-rate misalignment remains one of the most challenging empirical problems in an open economy. The basic problem is that the value of the...

The current level of per capita production of rice in Bangladesh can be sustained only through increased yields of modern rice varieties.The recent growth of foodgrain (primarily rice) production in Bangladesh has outpaced population growth largely because of the spread of green revolution...

In theory, moving from price-based subsidies for agriculture to less-distorted income support programs makes sense. In practice, income-support programs have many shortcomings, and developing countries may lack the support mechanisms needed to make them effective.Drawing on experience with...