Some of Rigobon’s findings: In Chile, when the price of wheat goes up by 10%, the price of bread goes up by 5% 18 months later. In Colombia and Peru, it takes three years for this same percentage increase to occur, with these countries taking longer “to digest the international shock of commodity prices.” Not only do the prices of bread, cookies, meat, chicken, move in lockstep with wheat, but in some cases, so do housing, health and education. But Rigobon found that when the international price of oil increases, there is an immediate impact on all products related to oil. What’s worse, when the price of oil increases, the price of gas at the pump or for a rental car goes up disproportionately.
MIT World » : The U.S. and the World's Recession - 0 views
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It’s been true for years, notes Rigobon, that “oil is unconditionally negatively correlated with cereals.” If oil is up, maize, sorghum and wheat prices are down. But this has recently changed, a sign “of the unique times we’re in, the policy challenges we’re facing.” We are simultaneously facing recession (due in large part to the sub-prime mortgage crisis), and inflation, in both food and oil prices. Central banks, he notes with scorn and wonderment, don’t include food and energy in their calculations of “core inflation.” If the job of these banks and government is to take care of their citizens, they must respond to this crisis along the lines of the response to 9/11 or Enron. Rigobon endorses well-communicated, transparent policies, and some tough measures like interest rate increases.
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How we measure a problem will influence how we define that problem.
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This is not directly related to the Millennium Development Goals, but the current state of the world's economy will have a direct impact on implementing those goals. It also has a relationship with concepts such as PSRP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers). One interesting fact, Central Banks do not include food or energy in their inflation measurements which impact the poor more than the rich.
Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People -- Godfray et al. 327 (5967): ... - 2 views
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more than one in seven people today still do not have access to sufficient protein and energy from their diet, and even more suffer from some form of micronutrient malnourishment
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Increases in production will have an important part to play, but they will be constrained as never before by the finite resources provided by Earth’s lands, oceans, and atmosphere
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a period of rising and more volatile food prices driven primarily by increased demand from rapidly developing countries, as well as by competition for resources from first-generation biofuels production
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