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Category: Social Unrest

Published November 29, 2011

My Work on Food Prices Discussed in Sweden’s Axess Magasin

A study by Marc F. Bellemare (2011) studies the link between food prices and food-related protests and riots. The study uses the amount of news about food riots as a measure of how widespread protests are and relates these to monthly data on food prices. This creates a relatively short time periods (months rather than years), which increases the accuracy of the relationship. Indeed, if one studies the relationship betweenthe protests in the Middle East that began in January and February with annual data, one would have missed the fact that that they were preceded by very large price increases starting in the fall of 2010. To identify a causal relationship, the study uses natural disasters to explain variation in food prices. Interestingly, the results of this study show that rising food prices lead to increased risk of protests, but that the effect is reverse for food price volatility.

This is from an article in in Sweden’s Axess Magasin by Jesper Roine, of the Stockholm School of Economics.

The original article is in Swedish — the above excerpt is brought to you in part by Google Translate. From the Wiki page for Axess Magasin, I conclude that it’s Sweden’s equivalent of The Atlantic.

Published November 28, 2011

DC Folks: Talk on Food Prices and Food Riots at the CGD on Monday, December 5

I will be giving the Center for Global Development’s Massachusetts Avenue Development Seminar next Monday, December 5, 2011, at 4 pm. In case anyone would like to meet beforehand, I am free in late morning and early afternoon, so please drop me an email.

Here is the announcement for the seminar:

The Center for Global Development presents
a Massachusetts Avenue Development Seminar (MADS) on

Food Prices and Riots:
Estimating How the Level and Volatility of Food Prices Shape Social Unrest in the Developing World, 1990-2011

Featuring
Marc Bellemare
Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics
Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

With Discussant
Ed Carr
Associate Professor
Department of Geography, University of South Carolina
and
American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow
United States Agency for International Development

Monday, December 5, 2011
4:00pm–5:30pm

at

Center for Global Development
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC
*Please bring photo identification*

Paper Abstract:  Can food prices cause political unrest? Throughout history, riots have frequently broken out, ostensibly as a consequence of high food prices. This paper studies the impact of food prices on political unrest using monthly data at the international level. Results indicate that in the period 1990-2011, food price increases appear to have led to increases in political unrest, whereas food price volatility has been associated with decreased political unrest.

Published November 15, 2011

Some Much-Needed Good News on the Food Prices Front

From the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations comes much-needed good news on the food prices front:

The food price index averaged 216 points in October 2011, down 4 percent, or as much as 9 points, from September and 22 points, or 9 percent, below its peak of 238 points reached in February 2011. The index has been falling steadily since June and, in October,  dropped to an 11-month low, but still some 5 percent above the corresponding period last year. The decline reflects sharp decreases in  international prices of all the commodities included in the index.

Indeed, the food price index encompasses five food categories: cereals, oils and fats, meat, dairy, and sugar. The real good news is that the price of cereals — which constitute the bulk of the diet of the poor in developing countries — has also declined significantly:

The cereal price index averaged 232 points in October,  down 5 percent, or 13 points, from September,  15 percent below its peak in April 2008, though 5 percent, or 12 points, higher than in October 2010.  The continuing decline in the monthly value of the cereal price index reflects this year’s prospect for a strong production recovery and slow economic growth in many developed countries weighing on overall demand, particularly from the feed and biofuels sectors.

We should also expect a decline in social unrest throughout the world as a consequences of lower food prices (link opens a .pdf document).