Who Wins and Who Loses from Staple Food Price Spikes? : Welfare Implications for Mozambique

Baez, Javier E. ; Caruso, German ; Pullabhotla, Hemant

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FOOD PRICES;    POVERTY;    INCIDENCE ANALYSIS;    WELFARE IMPACT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8612
RP-ID  :  WPS8612

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

With a large share of the populationdependent on agriculture and high exposure to naturaldisasters and other food price shocks, the welfare impactsof food price inflation in Mozambique cannot be ignored.This paper performs incidence analysis exploiting thespatial location of households to match data on consumptionwith production from agricultural activities to simulate thewelfare effects of food price changes. The analysis focuseson maize, rice, and cassava, which form a substantial partof the Mozambican diet, as a source of calories andbudgetary allocation. The results show large net negativewelfare effects of food price rises in rural areas andsmall, negative effects in urban areas. A 10 percentincrease in maize prices is associated with a reduction of1.2 percent in consumption per capita in rural areas and 0.2percent in urban areas. The effects from changes in theprices of rice and cassava are lower but qualitativelyequal. Overall, the negative effects are larger for thebottom half of the distribution and imply that the pricespike in 2016–17 may have translated into a poverty increaseof 4-6 percentage points, with some of the poorest provincesbearing much of the brunt. The results hold to changes insome of the underlying assumptions of the simulations.