Publication: Assessing the Potential Impact on Poverty of Rising Cereals Prices : The Case of Ghana
Date
2008-10
ISSN
Published
2008-10
Author(s)
Abstract
Concerns have been raised about the
impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To
assess the (short term) impact of rising food prices in any
particular country it is necessary to look at both the
impact on food producers (who benefit from an increase in
prices) and food consumers (who loose out when the price
increases), with a focus on poor producers and consumers.
In Ghana, the impact of a change in the price of rice is not
ambiguous because a large share of the rice consumed is
imported, so that the negative impact for consumers is much
larger than the positive impact for producers. For maize by
contrast, the impact is ambiguous since much of the
consumption is locally produced. Using a recent and
comprehensive household survey, this paper provides an
assessment of the potential impact of higher food prices on
the poor in Ghana using both simple statistical analysis and
non-parametric methods. The paper finds that rising food
prices for rice, maize, and other cereals would together
lead to an increase in poverty, but that by contrast to a
number of other countries, this increase, while not
negligible, may not be as large as feared.
Citation
“Wodon, Quentin; Tsimpo, Clarence; Coulombe, Harold. 2008. Assessing the Potential Impact on Poverty of Rising Cereals Prices : The Case of Ghana. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4740. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/7b201e4f-a195-533d-a3a9-2d13240a8c29 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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