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Category: Politics

Published March 19, 2011

Food Prices and Uprisings in the Arab World: More Evidence

Last week’s issue of The Economist featured a good article on the measures adopted by Arab governments since the beginning of 2011 to stave off political unrest.

In Algeria, the government cut the tax on sugar. Jordan cut fuel and food taxes. In Kuwait, the government offers free food for up to 14 months. Libya cut taxes and import duties on food. In Morocco, a system of subsidies was put in place for wheat producers. Syria cut taxes on coffee and sugar and reduced import duties on food. And in Tunisia, subsidies were put in place to compensate for rising food prices.

Continue readingFood Prices and Uprisings in the Arab World: More Evidence
Published March 14, 2011

Q&A on Food Prices in The Chronicle

I did a Q&A last week with The Chronicle — the student newspaper here at Duke University, not the other Chronicle — on, among other things, the relationship between food prices and political unrest:

TC: What sort of relationship exists between food prices and political turmoil?

MB: I think the causal relationship flows mostly from high food prices leading to political unrest. I can’t make a definite causal statement. We can’t observe a world in which nothing would have changed except for food prices, because there are so many factors that cannot be controlled. In the summer of 2008, it is uncanny that during that period of high food prices we had revolt in Indonesia and East Africa. Likewise, we are experiencing high food prices, and we have unrest in the Mediterranean.

Read the whole thing here. As an erratum, note that whoever wrote the lede got my affiliation wrong: I am an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics, not an Assistant Professor of Economics.