A Model of West African Millet Prices in Rural Markets

Molly E. Brown, Nathaniel Higgins and Beat Hintermann
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Molly E. Brown: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Nathaniel Higgins: University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

No 09-69, CEPE Working paper series from CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zurich

Abstract: In this article we specify a model of millet prices in the three West African countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Using data obtained from USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) we present a unique regional cereal price forecasting model that takes advantage of the panel nature of our data, and accounts for the flow of millet across markets. Another novel aspect of our analysis is our use of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to detect and control for variation in conditions for productivity. The average absolute out-of-sample prediction error for 4-month-ahead millet prices is about 20 %.

Keywords: Millet; cereal; West Africa; price forecasting; remote sensing; NDVI; regional panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O18 Q11 Q13 Q17 R32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-for
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A model of West African millet prices in rural markets (2015)
Working Paper: A Model of West African Millet Prices in Rural Markets (2013)
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