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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Is Market Liberalization Compatible with Food Security? Storage, Trade and Price Policies for Maize in Southern Africa
Author:Pinckney, Thomas C.ISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:Food Policy
Volume:18
Issue:4
Period:August
Pages:325-333
Language:English
Geographic terms:Zimbabwe
Zambia
Malawi
Subjects:prices
maize
food policy
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Economics and Trade
Politics and Government
External link:https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-9192(93)90052-D
Abstract:Concern for the negative impacts of staple food price fluctuations limits the extent to which governments in low-income countries are willing to liberalize their agricultural markets. These concerns are legitimate, as such price fluctuations can lead to high transactions costs for poor consumers in the short run and low growth in the long run. However, past government attempts to stabilize food prices completely have been expensive and ineffective. Can economic modelling help in the design of policies that stabilize prices and incomes at a reasonable cost? This question is applied to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, as well as the three countries together as a region. Use of a dynamic programming optimization model suggests that a different type of policy regime could reduce price variability significantly compared to what would prevail in free markets, and could accomplish this at relatively low cost. This policy regime includes allowing some official price flexibility with respect to changes in production and world price, exporting when regional market opportunities exist, and holding considerably lower stocks than in the past. Notes, ref., sum.
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