Food Prices and Poverty
Do higher food prices help or hinder poverty reduction? Despite much debate, existing research has almost solely relied on simulation models to address this question. In this paper World Bank poverty estimates are used to systematically test the re...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/421991480340958730/Food-prices-and-poverty http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25701 |
| Summary: | Do higher food prices help or hinder
poverty reduction? Despite much debate, existing research
has almost solely relied on simulation models to address
this question. In this paper World Bank poverty estimates
are used to systematically test the relationship between
changes in poverty and exogenous changes in real domestic
food prices. The paper uncovers indicative evidence that
increases in food prices are associated with reductions in
poverty, not increases. A likely empirical explanation is
the relatively strong agricultural supply and wage responses
to food price increases, and the fact that the majority of
the world's poor still heavily rely on agriculture or
agriculture-related activities to earn a living. |
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