With the price of cereals, that is. Last week, Tyler Cowen quoted the following in a post over at Marginal Revolution:
“Tunisians eat more wheat than anyone on the planet: 478 pounds per person a year, compared to 177 pounds in the US. Egyptians and Algerians also eat more than twice as much wheat as Americans, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.”
Given that, it is perhaps no surprise that the Arab Spring began with food riots in Algeria in late January followed by riots in which people were brandishing loaves of bread in Tunisia in early February, then by protests in Egypt, where bread is heavily subsidized.
This suggests that there might exist a causal relationship from food (i.e., cereal) prices to political instability.