Agricultural and Applied Economics—Without Apology
The Guardian had a really good article yesterday about the relationship between food prices and political instability, essentially concluding that rising food prices caused by crop shortages could lead to political instability.
In a pithy blog post last weekend, Paul Krugman explains how the increase in food prices actually came after an increase in the price of other commodities:
“Food was actually a latecomer to the commodity price surge. Overall commodity prices have been rising rapidly since world industrial production bottomed out. Food prices mostly didn’t follow until last summer — which is when the weather started going crazy in Russia and elsewhere.”
I would have liked to read more of Krugman’s thoughts on this topic, but even he admits that that post is mainly a note to himself.
Over the past few weeks, I have written extensively about the twin issues of rising food prices and food price volatility.
It all began with this post, in which I explained the difference between rising food prices and food price volatility and which came as a result of people frequently misusing the concept of food price volatility in the media, both mainstream and social.