Until recently, India followed a welfare based approach of distributing food grains to its low income group at an issue price, much lower than its market price or procurement price. In September 2013, the Government of India passed the National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA, also called the Right...

Global projections for increasing food demand combined with increasing demand for energy from all sources – including crop-based biofuels – point towards greater stress on food systems and their supporting ecosystems. In many parts of the world, increasing household incomes has translated...

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....

A key consideration for development of energy and climate policy affecting the forestry and agricultural sectors is that the selection of specific mechanisms implemented to achieve bioenergy production and/or greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation targets may have substantial effects on landowner...

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...

We employ a multi-region computable general equilibrium model of the world economy to estimate changes in worldwide food insecurity that result from the imposition of the U.S. Renewable Fuels Standard.

This paper analyzes the impact of expansion in biofuels on the global economy, income distribution and poverty. It utilizes simulation results of two World Bank models: a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model integrated with biofuels, land-use, and climate change modules, and a...