IMF Working Papers

Income Versus Prices: How Does The Business Cycle Affect Food (In)-Security?

By Christian Bogmans, Andrea Pescatori, Ervin Prifti

September 24, 2021

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Christian Bogmans, Andrea Pescatori, and Ervin Prifti. Income Versus Prices: How Does The Business Cycle Affect Food (In)-Security?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2021) accessed December 21, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

We study how two aspects of food insecurity - caloric insufficiency and diet composition - are affected by aggregate economic fluctuations. The use of cross-country panel data allows us to adopt a global prospective on the identification of the macroeconomic determinants of food insecurity. Income shocks are the most relevant driver of food insecurity, displaying high elasticities at the early stages of economic development. The role of food price shocks is more limited. Social protection has a direct effect and mitigates the impact of income shocks. Effects are highly heterogeneous across a range of structural characteristics of the economy, highlighting the role of distributional aspects and of food import dependency.

Subject: Food prices, Food security, Income, Inflation, National accounts, Poverty, Prices, Purchasing power

Keywords: Coefficient estimate, Coefficient estimates of the interaction terms, Descriptive statistics, Diet and health, Elasticity of undernourishment, FD estimate, Food inflation, Food insecurity, Food prices, Food security, Global, Growth, Income, Income elasticity, Income share, Inflation, Inflation elasticity, Least squares, Ln GDP pc, Purchasing power, Rising prices, Social protection, South Asia

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    40

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2021/238

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2021238

  • ISBN:

    9781557752468

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941