The political economy of food security: a behavioural perspective

Peter Timmer

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter makes three basic points. First, from a political economy perspective, food security is intimately connected to volatility of staple food prices. Second, policy makers respond to this connection by focusing policy attention and fiscal resources on preventing and coping with volatile food prices, but these resources have opportunity costs in terms of slower economic growth in the long run. And third, policy makers are right to do this, because their political constituents have deep, visceral responses to volatile food prices, especially to food price spikes, that are based in behavioral psychology. The basic argument of the chapter is that new understanding from behavioral economics provides a solid foundation for a political economy of food security that moves away from the narrow assumptions of neoclassical economics, especially trade theory, to a more realistic framework that identifies why the vast majority of consumers and producers want stable food prices. From this understanding flows a much clearer approach to how and when to stabilize food prices.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHandbook on food: demand, supply, sustainability and security
EditorsRaghbendra Jha, Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar
Place of PublicationCheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA
PublisherEdward Elgar Publishing
Pages22-40
Volume1
Edition1st
ISBN (Print)9781781004289
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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