Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent

Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Gilbert, Christopher L., Christiaensen, Luc, Kaminski, Jonathan
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Elsevier 2018
Subjects:	SEASONALITY SEASONAL PRICES FOOD MARKET COMMODITIES SAWTOOTH MODEL MAIZE RICE STAPLE CROPS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS HUNGER AGRICULTURE
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29155

id	okr-10986-29155
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-291552021-05-25T10:54:42Z Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent Gilbert, Christopher L. Christiaensen, Luc Kaminski, Jonathan SEASONALITY SEASONAL PRICES FOOD MARKET COMMODITIES SAWTOOTH MODEL MAIZE RICE STAPLE CROPS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS HUNGER AGRICULTURE Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias. This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption. 2018-01-12T21:13:07Z 2018-01-12T21:13:07Z 2017-02 Journal Article Food Policy 0306-9192 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29155 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Burkina Faso Ethiopia Ghana Malawi Niger Tanzania Uganda
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	SEASONALITY SEASONAL PRICES FOOD MARKET COMMODITIES SAWTOOTH MODEL MAIZE RICE STAPLE CROPS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS HUNGER AGRICULTURE
spellingShingle	SEASONALITY SEASONAL PRICES FOOD MARKET COMMODITIES SAWTOOTH MODEL MAIZE RICE STAPLE CROPS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS HUNGER AGRICULTURE Gilbert, Christopher L. Christiaensen, Luc Kaminski, Jonathan Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
geographic_facet	Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Burkina Faso Ethiopia Ghana Malawi Niger Tanzania Uganda
description	Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias. This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption.
format	Journal Article
author	Gilbert, Christopher L. Christiaensen, Luc Kaminski, Jonathan
author_facet	Gilbert, Christopher L. Christiaensen, Luc Kaminski, Jonathan
author_sort	Gilbert, Christopher L.
title	Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
title_short	Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
title_full	Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
title_fullStr	Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
title_full_unstemmed	Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent
title_sort	food price seasonality in africa : measurement and extent
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29155
_version_	1764468632242356224

Food Price Seasonality in Africa : Measurement and Extent

Similar Items