Shock transmission in the International Food Trade Network. A Data-driven Analysis

Tiziano Distefano (tiziano.distefano@polito.it), Francesco Laio (francesco.laio@polito.it), Luca Ridolfi (luca.ridolfi@polito.it) and Stefano Schiavo
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Tiziano Distefano: Department of Environmental, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Francesco Laio: Department of Environmental, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Luca Ridolfi: Department of Environmental, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

No 617, SEEDS Working Papers from SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies

Abstract: Food Security is a longstanding concern worldwide. The expansion of global food markets brings benefits but also risks, such as shock transmission within the global network of trade relations. We focus on this last issue, from an empirical point of view, by analysing the di usion of trade shocks - defined as relevant drops in exported quantities - during the period 1986 - 2011, for four major staples (wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans) both at country level and global scale. We find that: (i) income per capita of importing countries matters in shock propagation; (ii) developing countries tend to absorb most of the negative export variation (i.e., the trade shock), and (iii) global food prices and real (tonnes) uxes of commodities are only weakly correlated, meaning that a quantity-based investigation provides additional information with respect to a price-based analysis. This work o ers a novel framework, complementary to the price-based literature, for the definition and measurement of the propagation of international food shocks.

Keywords: food crisis; shock propagation; food security; international grain trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2017-09, Revised 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://www.sustainability-seeds.org/papers/RePec/srt/wpaper/0617.pdf First version, 2017 (application/pdf)
http://www.sustainability-seeds.org/papers/RePec/srt/wpaper/0617.pdf Revised version, 2017 (application/pdf)

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