Price Volatility in the Food Markets

19 Pages Posted: 23 May 2015

See all articles by Hilary Till

Hilary Till

Premia Research LLC; Commodity Insights Digest (a publication of Bayes Business School)

Date Written: July 18, 2011

Abstract

Food price volatility has spiked to levels last seen in the 1970s. For low-income countries, food price hikes, such as have occurred recently, tend to significantly increase the incidence of intra-state conflicts, according to IMF research. The 2007-2008 food crisis, and the resumption of more recent food price spikes, clearly have a number of causes. That said, in reviewing over a century of commodity price volatility, there are episodes of low volatility and high volatility, which would indicate that this may be a pattern of recurrent phenomena. As a result, it may be wise to focus on how to manage price volatility rather than believe that this phenomenon can be eradicated.

Keywords: food price volatility, commodty, agriculture, futures market, speculation, hedging

JEL Classification: G1, G18, Q11, Q18

Suggested Citation

Till, Hilary, Price Volatility in the Food Markets (July 18, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2609092 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2609092

Hilary Till (Contact Author)

Premia Research LLC ( email )

Chicago, IL
United States
312-583-1137 (Phone)
312-873-3914 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/custom-index-calculations/premia/all/

Commodity Insights Digest (a publication of Bayes Business School) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.bayes-cid.com

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
55
Abstract Views
558
Rank
670,186
PlumX Metrics