Skip to content

Marc F. Bellemare Posts

Published February 11, 2011

More Miscellaneous Food Policy Links

  1. Every time I start wondering whether I really need to subscribe to The Atlantic when I barely have enough time to keep up with all the other things I have to read, the magazine manages to sink its hook into me again. This time around, it did so with an interesting, well-written article by B.R. Myers on foodies and foodie-ism.
  2. Bryan McDonald has a good post about the potential link between food prices and political unrest.
  3. One more from The Atlantic: Megan McArdle has a good post discussing Mark Bittman’s comment on the new USDA dietary guidelines.
Published February 10, 2011

International Development Job at Maryland Public Policy

The School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park is seeking a scholar (rank open: tenure, tenure track, or professor of the practice) whose academic background and professional achievements make her/him a likely future leader in our program in international development policy, one of the fastest growing multidisciplinary teaching and research areas at the School. Salary is competitive.

Applicants should have a PhD (or equivalent terminal degree) with a specialization in public policy, development ethics, economics, law, political economy, political science, social development, or other development-related area, or anticipate receiving such a degree before the academic year 2011-12. The School has particular interest in individuals with substantial international development experience, either as a scholar with experience in the field, or as a scholar-practitioner engaged in U.S. governmental, multilateral, non-governmental, or non-profit development institutions. Preference will be given to candidates willing and able to advise our growing number of PhD students in international development and to help lead the International Development specialization.

The University of Maryland School of Public Policy is a top-ranked graduate school of public policy and management with a distinguished faculty of scholars and practitioners. The School offers a Master of Public Policy degree primarily for pre-career students, a Master of Public Management degree primarily for mid-career students, and a Masters in Public Policy and Engineering. There is a small and selective PhD program for outstanding emerging scholars. The School also offers executive (degree and non-degree) programs for career executives in federal, state, and international agencies. The University of Maryland is located inside the Washington Beltway, within 30 minutes of federal agencies, international institutions, and many non-governmental, non-profit, and private policy-research organizations.

For best consideration, applications should be received by February 28, 2011. Application review will begin February 28 and continue until the position is filled. Applicant materials should include a letter of interest describing the candidate’s qualifications, a C.V. including the names and contact information for at least three references, a recent publication or writing sample, and a summary of teaching experience. Go to http://jobs.umd.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=53569 to apply or go to http://jobs.umd.edu and search for the position. Application materials sent outside of the online system will not be accepted. Questions should be directed to msppidev2011@umd.edu. The appointment is anticipated to begin in August 2011.

As an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, the School particularly encourages and welcomes applications from women, minority candidates, and persons with disabilities.

(HT: ERN Professional Announcements.)

Published February 9, 2011

Miscellaneous Food Policy Links

I would love to take the time to discuss each of these items in detail, but Tuesdays are my big teaching day — I teach my section of the core undergraduate micro class for Public Policy Studies majors during lunch, and I teach my law and economics seminar after dinner — and yesterday was the day of the first prelim in my micro class. And today, I am moderating a panel on global agricultural markets at a conference at the Fuqua School of Business, so here goes:

  1. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations issued a warning that drought in China may considerably reduce the amount of wheat available on world markets. As Krugman notes, it’s not because China is largely autarkic (or self-sufficient) when it comes to wheat that this will not put pressure on the prices of other food staples. After all, various commodities are substitutes for or complements to one another, and prices rarely if ever change in a vacuum.
  2. Speaking of Krugman, I completely agree with him when he says that there is little to no evidence that speculation on food markets caused the current price spike. I am also a skeptic as to whether speculation and arbitrage will solve the world food problem given the transaction costs Krugman mentions. It could very well be, however, that speculation and arbitrage remains the best we can do to attenuate food price fluctuations.
  3. Center for Economic and Policy Research (a liberal, Washington, DC-based think-tank not to be confused with the academic London-based Center Centre for Economic Policy Research) co-director Dean Baker had an excellent, long post about how the Washington Post is systematically confused about the role of the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, in causing the food price spike, with thanks to my colleague Don Taylor for orienting me towards this post.
  4. Institute for Development Studies director Lawrence Haddad (whose paper with Alderman et al. I assign to students in my development seminar every fall semester)  had a post on how to make agriculture more helpful in attaining better nutrition for people in developing countries.
  5. From Tom Paulson, an  example of the causal claims I warned against in yesterday’s post on whether food prices caused Tunisia and Egypt.