Comparing the Impact of Food and Energy Price Shocks on Consumers : A Social Accounting Matrix Analysis for Ghana

Parra, Juan Carlos ; Wodon, Quentin

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: APPROACH;    BEEF;    CAPITAL ACCOUNT;    CASSAVA;    CEREAL PRICES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4741
RP-ID  :  WPS4741

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Many countries have been affected byfood and oil price shocks. Rising energy costs havemanifested themselves through higher prices of gas at thepump and through price increases for many other goods suchas kerosene and transport. But in some countries there hasalso been some degree of protection for consumers forexample when authorities have chosen to try to keepelectricity tariffs affordable through implicit subsidies(which are unfortunately often poorly targeted). For foodprices, the effect on consumers has often been more rapidthan for oil-related products, as the increase in importprices have been typically fully passed on to consumers andhas often been accompanied by increases in the prices ofdomestically produced foods. Recent attention has thereforerightly been focused on food prices, but the issue of oilprices is important as well. While food prices tend to havea larger direct impact on consumers due to the larger shareof food in total household consumption, oil prices may havelarger multiplier effects than food prices becauseoil-related products are used as intermediary products inmany productive sectors. It therefore remains an openquestion as to whether the medium-term impact of food or oilprices is likely to be larger in any given country. It alsoremains open to question as to whether urban as opposed torural households are most likely to be affected. While urbanhouseholds are likely to rely on consumption of importedgoods more than rural households, the weight of food andpossibly oil-related products may well be larger in theconsumption patterns of rural than urban households.Answering these questions may be useful to guide discussionson compensatory measures that governments can take torespond to the twin crisis of higher food and oil prices. Inthis context the objective of this paper is to provide acomparative analysis of the multiplier impact of both typesof price shocks using a recent Social Accounting Matrix forGhana. The paper finds that both the direct impacts of foodprices and the indirect impacts of oil prices arepotentially large, so that both should be dealt with byauthorities when considering compensatory measures toprotect households from higher consumer prices.