Unstable Farm Prices: Economic Consequences and Policy Options

America's children: economic perspectives and policy options.

American children are worse off than those in the previous generation in several important dimensions of mental, physical, and emotional well-being. During the 1960s cultural changes adversely affected children while their material condition improved substantially. By contrast, material conditions deteriorated in the 1980s, especially among children at the lower end of the income distribution. ...

U.S. FARM POLICY AND THE VARIABILITY OF COMMODITY PRICES AND FARM REVENUES Introduction

A dynamic, three-commodity rational-expectations storage model is used to compare the impact of the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 with a freemarket policy and with the agricultural policies that preceded the FAIR Act. Results support the hypothesis that the changes made when FAIR was enacted did not lead to permanent significant increases in the volatility of fa...

The Economic and Policy Consequences of Catastrophes

What is the likelihood that the U.S. will experience a devastating catastrophic event over the next few decades – something that would substantially reduce the capital stock, GDP and wealth? What does the possibility of such an event imply for the behavior of economic variables such as investment, interest rates, and equity prices? And how much should society be willing to pay to reduce the pro...

Rising food prices: Policy options and World Bank response

Policy options to address price volatility and high prices

Broadly speaking, interventions to reduce the costs associated with price volatility can be divided into two types. First, there are interventions that reduce price volatility, such as improving market information (Box 7). Second, there are interventions that accept price volatility as given and attempt to cope with it. These coping mechanisms can be either before (ex ante) or after (ex post) t...