Thinking Econ

Doha Busts...

2008-08-01T08:40:00.004-05:00

As many of you have probably heard, trade talks that were being held in Geneva, pushed by the WTO chief Pascal Lamy, and being part of the so-called Doha round, ended quite quickly and without a positive outcome this week. An article in The Economist this weeks talks about why the Doha round has been such a bust. It states that this round has the burden of dealing with the previous Uruguay round's conclusions, where developed countries 'got their way' regarding negotiations about intellectual property and manufactured goods (not a lot though, but at least the subjects were on the table), but developing countries were still unheard when it came to talks about agriculture, which is their main concern. In the Uruguay round, quotas were turned into tariffs, which is what negotiations in Doha are all about. Therefore, developing countries want to have their say this time, and thus, this week, talks ended without interested parties reaching an agreement.

Economically speaking, countries in this negotiation are probably negotiating under the wrong terms. Paul Krugman states in a blog post, interestingly (but correctly, in my opinion), that:

Trade negotiations aren’t driven by economists’ calculations of welfare gains; they’re driven by enlightened mercantilism [...]

Each country is trying to get the most out of these talks, but thinking about what it is best for it from an archaic (and somewhat fruitless) perspective. Each country wants to be able to sell as much as it wants, but wants to be able to restrict its imports in order to give breathing room for its producers. Adam Smith and then David Ricardo made it quite clear quite a while back how trading with other countries is beneficial for all parties involved. Even if countries have to go through some 'creative destruction' (using Schumpeter's terminology), eventually each will be producing those products where each country holds some comparative advantage, and which are what the country is most productive at. Simple economic models, such as the Heckscher-Ohlin model show how such trade can be beneficial if each country specializes in that in which it is productive and uses its resources accordingly. Trade barriers, such as those that were not mitigated during this weeks talk create 'artificial advantages' by making other country's products more expensive in the local market (when tariffs are in place), or by making home products more competitive abroad (by using subsidies). In either case, resources are being wasted.

In these talks it is common to hear mainly producer's viewpoints. Consumers are rarely mentioned, and, in my opinion, this is the group who benefits the most from liberalizing trend. Cheaper products mean that a consumers purchasing power is increased. In addition to this, trade talks can lead to new markets opening up for some producers to sell their products. Just the fact that consumers in these new markets have an extra possibility of adding something new or different to their consumption bundle is a considerable gain. Some say pleasure comes with variety, and a less restricted trade gives this possibility to many consumers worldwide.

Anyway, this is a serious issue because, as Krugman says, we are negotiating based on premises that have long been useless, and as if economics has taught us nothing. Trade is not a zero-sum game, meaning that someone’s gain in NOT someone else’s loss. We can all benefit from less restricted trade, even if that benefit comes from countries coming to grips with reality and realizing that traditional exports are probably not as competitive as they once were and change in production plans need to be undertaken. Although Doha as such is not over, this was a heavy blow. Let's just hope for better outcomes in the next set of talks.

Agency Problems and the Sub-Prime Crisis

2008-07-19T20:44:00.003-05:00

I just finished a summer school course at Harvard University and sat for my final exam a few days ago. The course's name is "Organizations, Management Behavior, and Economics", and although the topic was broad, many interesting ideas came up. A question in the final exam asked us basically to think about agency issues in relation to the current subprime crisis. An answer to part of this question seemed quite interesting to post, hence...

In order to address moral hazard or agency issues in two of the proposed levels, a quick introduction to these situations is called for. In the first place, agency issues deal with the fact that there is a separation in the wishes of a person who wants an action done, and the person who actually carries it out. One type of agency problems can be seen as ex-ante information problems (hidden information), where one of the parties carrying out a transaction has more complete information about some part of the transaction and can thus bargain in his favor. The other party, fearing this, might not be willing to negotiate and make cause the transaction to not occur at all, or for there to be adverse selection. Moral hazard, in turn, deals with (ex-post) hidden action. Douma & Schreuder (2002, p. 60), while speaking about moral hazard, say, “[moral hazard] refers to actions that parties in a transaction may take after they have agreed to execute the transaction”. With this in mind, it is possible to identify such problems at some levels of the ongoing sub-prime crisis.

Regarding sub-prime borrowers, moral hazard is bound to happen. Even though there is a label on these borrowers clearly stating that the possibility of repayment on their mortgage loans is not an optimal one, these borrowers started receiving loans at an accelerated rate during the housing market boom in the early and mid 2000s. When these borrowers received their loans, they signed a contract that stated that they would pay back the loans. Some of these borrowers intended to buy a home for their families, others just wanted to get in the real estate game and earn some money once the price of the houses they had purchased started to rise. Moral hazard shows up when these borrowers, once they have received the loan to buy a house for their family, one that would supposedly be off the market due to the fact that someone was going to live there for (presumably) several years, instead bought homes in order to sell them later, eventually flooding the market with an excess supply of houses, pushing the price of their homes down, and thus making the value of other people’s houses fall as well. Moral hazard occurs when these borrowers decided to buy houses for speculation instead of buying them as their homes, as stated in their mortgage contracts. When prices ultimately fell, those people who actually used the money correctly started getting foreclosure letters in their mailboxes. So moral hazard did play a role in the ongoing crises, but this was boosted because loan officers, thanks to agency issues, allowed it to happen.

Loan officers are hired in order to make out loans. That is their job and that is what they are hired to do, and thus why they receive a paycheck. However, the owners of the organization that issues these loans is not only interested in making loans, but making loans that get paid back and thus bring about profits. There is thus an agency issue, where the loan officer is the agent and the owner of the financial (mortgage) organization are the principals. The problem arises because both parties here don’t have the same goals, and the agent does not have sufficient (or well designed) incentives in order to carry out the principal’s will. The loan officer gets paid to issue loans, and thus, during the housing boom, loans were issued to whoever wanted to get them. In addition to this, rising house prices somewhat helped in thinking that the loans would be paid back. This agency problem led loan officers to issue loans that would not be paid to people who were not actually going to spend their money on what they said they would. Both issues thus played and are playing a role in the ongoing subprime crisis.

Even though this topic has been talked about for quite some time now, it still seemed interesting. By the way, summer at Harvard has been amazing!

Site Hits Boost

2008-07-16T21:38:00.004-05:00

Due to a recent link to a post on this blog from Greg Mankiw's Blog, page views for it have skyrocketed. That's what some good publicity will do for you (Thanks Dr. Mankiw!). Anyway, I'll try to keep posting up in case anyone found anything here interesting and is expecting more!

Cheers!

Menu Costs and Price Stickiness in Harvard Square Revisited

2008-07-16T17:28:00.003-05:00

Check it out:

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Time to Pay the Menu Cost

Greg Mankiw posts the picture of this sign I found in his blog! You can find some of my comments on it on a previous post. Cheers for that! Hahaha....

Menu Costs and Price Stickiness In Harvard Square

2008-07-11T21:11:00.005-05:00

While walking around the wonder that is Harvard University and Harvard Square, I came about this sign in a small pizza place. It exemplifies and explains in a concise manner the existence of sticky prices.

Classical theory suggests that prices adjust rather quickly in order to even out supply and demand of products, and that firms act in order to maximize their profits. When input prices rise (thus increasing costs), firms should raise their prices accordingly. Prices should not remain fixed.

This sign seems to agree with new keynesian ideas that prices tend to be sticky. Firms do not wish to change their prices due to things like menu costs. They also don't want to continually change their prices because this might have an adverse effect on costumer satisfaction. This is exactly the case in this situation. However, a time must come where prices tend to change (and rampant world inflation seems to be a just cause for this!). I believe that we can expect the new price to hold for a couple of years though....

It is interesting how even shop signs around Harvard can teach you a thing or two about economics!

Regulation in Financial Markets Today

2008-05-11T09:35:00.007-05:00

A recent column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times got me thinking on regulation in financial markets (and markets in general), which ultimately boils down to the discussion between classical laissez-faire and Keynesian interventionist policies.

What makes Krugman also wonder about this is that as the US recessions wanes, it is likely that financial markets will continue to work as they have done in recent times, which is considered to be a likely cause for the US' current problems. There has been some talk about regulation other non-bank financial institutions, and making successive reforms in financial market regulation in order to control newly formed ways of winding around current regulation. However, with the (likely) recession (possibly) coming to a halt, taking the economy on an upward trail, means that the urge for regulation will never come. Should it?

This creation of new financial mechanisms, and generally ways to escape regulation in any market, are due to occur thanks to people's never-ending quest for profit, which is what makes markets the slippery subjects they are. Slippery meaning that regulation does not bode well for them, and thus there will likely be someone who finds a way to bypass regulation (legally or illegally). This is the main argument for non-regulation. Let the market be (laissez-faire), and it will come on its own to some equilibrium where efficiency is at its prime. Regulation will just mess up its inner workings down to the point of inefficiency and undesired allocation of resources. This is generally true, in my opinion, but not in every case. An example of when this is not the case such stands out: Prohibition in the early twentieth century, where regulating alcohol consumption led to moon-shining and black markets for alcohol, which were clearly hazardous for people's health and generally not good for public, since more resources had to go into keeping prohibition in place. However, as it has been discussed in a previous post, what should be done when the actual market outcome is unwanted and undesirable?

Answering this question is difficult because (1) finding a solution to an inefficient outcome is hard to do, and, most importantly, (2) agreeing on what an undesirable outcome is is even harder. The latter obliges people to be subjective and let their emotions take over. Therefore, I will not try to answer such a complicated question, but I will state my own opinion, for the particular case of financial markets today.

Letting the financial market be ultimately gives people a chance to be as creative as possible to play around with its uncountable number of mechanisms in order to obtain a profit. Financial markets are places were fortunes are either made or lost in a blink of an eye. Speculations plays a major role. In my opinion this is not wrong, but has the potential to be disastrous. Looking at the case of the current US slowdown, speculation in the real estate market lead to a bubble that finally burst. This was troublesome, but it was not the main cause of the problem. The bubble occurred in part because people where being lent out money in the financial system in order to buy homes for speculation and not for living in. Furthermore, people who could not a afford such home (sub-prime borrowers) were receiving these loans. Even worse, these loans where used as collateral for the banks to receive loans from people (mortgage backed securities). So, when the bubble burst, people lost their wealth as home prices fell. They couldn't pay there mortgage. Those who has mortgage backed securities lost their wealth as well because the banks could not repay them. So the banks stopped lending money, leading to a credit-crunch. No one wanted to spend, so there is a recession. Looking back, it was the financial market, which is largely unregulated, the epicenter of disaster.

Back in simpler times, Adam Smith though that financial markets should be regulated through the usury rate. What should be done today in modern complex markets when they have the potential of sending the world's must advanced economy in to a spiral of recession? In my opinion, a little more regulation is worth its cost in order to prevent such outcomes. Giving the FED the capacity to overlook both bank and non-bank financial organizations is a good idea. Furthermore, the future is never clear, so some preemptive solutions for troubles that are yet to come must be thought of. As Krugman posits, this opportunity to do something about the current deregulation should not be allowed to slip away.

Its interesting to see how two different markets today are yielding somewhat inefficient outcomes, namely, the world food market, and financial markets in the US. Is Keynesian reasoning becoming useful for world policy-making once again?

Adam Smith and Counter-Productive Markets, Is This the Case Today?

2008-04-22T16:51:00.007-05:00

While re-reading a chapter from Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, when Sen is about to explain that markets are important for development, not only for the productive economic outcomes they yield, but also because of the fact that markets give people the freedom to choose, to make transactions and to exchange freely (which are substantive freedoms that according to Sen must be taken into account in any measure of development), he mentions a case where Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations actually supports market regulation. So, I turn to the original source to see what this was about.

In Book II, Chapter IV, Paragraphs 14-15 of The Wealth of Nations, Smith talks about the markets for loanable funds (though he uses other terms), and whether or not the usury rate for interest in this market must be controlled. The usury rate is a legal maximum interest that can be charged on these loans. Keep in mind that in this market different interest rates serve as equilibrium prices depending on the conditions and risk of the loan. He is very clear in stating that interest is the rightful payment that a person must receive for forgoing the use of his capital and lending it out to someone else, and, hence, it should be lawful to allow people to charge an interest for lending out their capital (in his time, some countries didn't allow charging interests; i.e. the usury rate was zero). The loans would be placed at the ongoing market interest rate for each loan; riskier loans entail a greater interest rate. Now, the usury rate here plays a role in determining the allocation of capital. Smith explains that if the usury rate is below the lowest market rate (that for the safest loans), no loans will be issued because people don't find it worthwhile to lend their capital, and thus, this capital is not allocated to a productive process as it would have been if it were loaned. If the usury rate is exactly at this lowest rate, potential borrowers who don't have enough collateral (thus making the loan risky), but who are honest and will pay won't receive loans, and once again, capital is not allocated efficiently. So, the usury rate must be higher that the lowest market rate, but how much?

Smith explains that if the usury rate is too high, loans will only be given out to "prodigals and projectors" (speculators in modern terms), since it is only they who are willing to pay high interest rates. A borrower wishing to undertake a productive enterprise will only be willing to pay a part of his profits back as interests. If the rate is too high, taking out the loan is not profitable. Lenders, on the other hand, will prefer to loan their capital to "prodigals and projectors" in order to benefit from the higher returns (I'm guessing eighteenth century Englishmen were not risk-averse...). If this happens, once again, capital is not put to productive uses, but is put instead in the hands of those most likely to waste or misuse it. In this case, the market outcome is counter-productive. Therefore, Smith concludes that the usury rate must be above the lowest market rate, but not very much so. This would cause loans and capital to be allocated to people with plans of starting productive processes, thus yielding a more efficient outcome.

"Prodigals and projectors" have the capacity of creating market bubbles. This is one of the reasons for the United States' current crisis; home prices rose a lot for several years, but it turned out to be s speculative bubble, where people bought homes not to live in but as an "investment", expecting a future return when prices rose. When prices started falling, many people saw the wealth diminish, and lost confidence in the system. Many people had their homes repossessed, a lot of whom had taken out a loan in order to pay for the house they were going to live in. So, speculation caused bad outcomes for those who Smith would deem "honest" borrowers. This was truly a non-efficient market outcome. Furthermore, Paul Krugman in his column in the New York Times yesterday (you might need to sign up to read it), states that one of the possible reasons for rising food prices is commodity speculation. People, expecting higher food prices, make deals on commodity futures, and, as a result of a self-fulfilling prophecy, food prices rise. Would Adam Smith, the father and foremost proponent of free markets say that this inefficient market outcome requires some sort of cap for commodity and property speculation? Maybe so...

Returning to Amartya Sen, I totally agree with both points of view about the importance of markets in development. Markets are the best tool for our disposal for the allocation of resources, as I have stated in a previous post, and they bring about the best opportunities for development in a traditional way. However, looking at development as freedom, the freedom to choose and exchange brought about by markets must be taken into account as part of development (the same market outcome under authoritarian rule would not be as good). However, sometimes markets allocate resources in a counter-productive way for society, and a little intervention or regulation is called for.

Globalization and Chaos Theory

2008-04-16T21:55:00.009-05:00

Edward Lorenz, renown mathematician and meteorologist died today in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 90, and was still a teacher at MIT. He was known for his work in Chaos Theory and for coming up with what has become known as the 'butterfly effect'. In short, the 'butterfly effect' explains how a small change in the initial conditions of a system can trigger a very large change in the outcome and behavior of the system. This effect receives its name because it can be described by an explanation, or example, where something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can have rippling effects on the atmosphere and ultimately be the cause of a tornado in the southern United States (maybe the graph of the effects that a small change in the initial conditions of a system has on its outcome, which looks somewhat like a butterfly, might have something to do with it as well).

What does this have to do with economics? You might ask. Well, it serves as a parallel to what is going on in our world today.

A story in the New York Times explains how a drought in Australia can be partly blamed for this week's riots in Haiti. A few years back, a small town in New South Wales held the Southern Hemisphere's biggest rice mill, producing enough rice to feed twenty million people. Lately, a drought has come about the region, causing rice production to cease (almost) entirely. This causes a substantial drop in supply in the world's rice market, pushing up this staple's price.

Around the world, Haiti's 8.5 million people, who import four fifths (4/5) of their rice, find that there is not only a surge in prices, but those who can actually afford it can't seem to find it. This has caused social unrest, leading to riots, and reaching to the point where the country's prime minister was forced to be removed from office last week.

This whole deal teaches us a lesson. The world is interdependent; globalization is a reality, and not just a possibility. The question nowadays is not whether to be a part of it or not, it's how to maximize its advantages (or minimize its disadvantages) now that the world is globalized. Some countries have decided to set up export restrictions on their produce (Corn Laws in England in the 1800s and David Ricardo ring a bell?), while other richer countries have decided that aid is the way to go in order to get poorer countries producing again. However, it is clear that a country's internal situation can have determining effects on that of another (Chaos!), such as a butterfly might have on weather systems. Who knows, maybe a butterfly is to blame for Australia's drought and Haiti's riots!

This parallel is interesting, and might make sense, but it can also be a far-fetched way of linking two interesting events. I'll let you be the judge of that.

Keynesian Policies in Multilateral Organizations

2008-04-14T21:55:00.005-05:00

As the increase in food prices becomes an escalating problem, multilateral agencies like the IMF and the World Bank have decided that it is time to intervene.

In the 1930s John Maynard Keynes critiqued what he deemed 'classical' postulates that basically stated that markets and the price system were the best tools at our disposal for the allocation of scarce resources, and thus the economy was always in equilibrium at its full-employment level. Instead, he posited that the government was an even better tool, since full-employment equilibrium was just a particular case, and not the general case, and hence it could play a determining role in market outcomes. A government, by spending, despite whether this was funded by becoming indebted or by printing money (through seigniorage, which was actually preferred by Keynes), could affect the composition of aggregate demand and thus help an economy out of recession, thus accelerating the economy's path to equilibrium.

This Keynesian way of thinking inspired policies such as the American 'New Deal' under Roosevelt in the 1930s, which eventually helped economies climb out of the depression. During the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, both the IMF and the World Bank were created, and Keynes was there to help figure out there roles. Therefore, intervention in market outcomes was part of their initial role. However, the neoclassical synthesis, which took Keynesian views as correct in the short run, and 'classical' views as appropriate in the long run (money is neutral, and equilibrium in real variables is reached at its full-employment level), started to dissolve in the 1960s, basically by new insights by thinkers like Friedman, Phelps (implying that there was no direct trade-off between inflation and unemployment since expectations had to be accounted for), and Lucas (who also mentioned the importance of expectations, and how supply can adjust to demand based on these expectations). This opened up the doors for New-Classical theorizing, and brought new-found importance to the market mechanism: they were once again the answer to allocation.

This would affect the IMF and World Bank's inner workings. In the 1980s, markets became the answer to the world's problems, and the heads of large economies (i.e. Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK) were great supporters of these ideas. Therefore, The IMF and World Bank started to incorporate this in their policies. Countries had to adopt free market schemes in order to receive aid. This became known as the Washington consensus. Many authors, like Joseph Stiglitz in Globalization and its Discontents (Mostly the IMF here), have criticized this, saying that these organizations took free markets as a magical prescription for development.

Today, both the IMF and the World Bank are trying to help out, giving more aid to poor countries (like doubling aid to Haiti), and urging rich countries to supply the aid that has been promised but still not delivered. Apparently the multilateral organizations are returning to their original inner workings. The new plans and extra aid to help out are being called 'new deal' policies, thus looking back at those policies with the same name in the '30s.

It can't be said, though, that Keynesian policies were abandoned completely by the organizations throughout the twentieth century, because they were still intervening. Under 'classical' policies, neither institution would have existed, since there would be no need for any intervention whatsoever. Nonetheless, the policies they push for seem to be once again more aligned to Keynes's original ideas.

Oh, and don't get me wrong. I may sound critical, but I am a huge fan of free markets and I do believe that they are the best allocating mechanism. But I also believe that some markets allocate resources in a way that may not be the best socially acceptable outcome. In these (not-so-common) cases, the government must do something about it. What would happen if the FED did not lend money to JP Morgan to buy-out (bail-out???) Bear Sterns, or other such situations? I agree with Keynes's idea that the government can make a difference (if its goals are sound, that is!).

Which Tax Scheme?

2008-04-13T23:00:00.008-05:00

A recent post in Greg Mankiw's Blog (you should read that first) points out how the same tax scheme can sound good or bad depending on how you look at it.

I find two things that seem dodgy. First, the last paragraph posits a situation where poor parents are given a SMALLER credit, while the first paragraph stated that they would receive a LARGER one. Second, lets take a close look at this:

[...] a bonus for those who have a child amounts to a penalty for those who don't have one. (Saying that those with children should be taxed less than the childless is another way of saying that the childless should be taxed more than those with children.) So when poor parents receive a smaller credit than rich ones, that is, in effect, the same as the childless poor paying a smaller surcharge than the childless rich. To many, the first deal sounds unfair and the second sounds fair -- but they're the very same tax scheme.

The first sentence makes sense, but it implies that there will be some sort of transfer from childless individuals to those with children, no matter if they are rich or poor. So, if poor parents are given LARGER credits and rich parents are given SMALLER credits, this can still be done by imposing SMALLER surcharges to the childless poor and LARGER surcharges to the childless rich, since the taxes (surcharges) are pooled together and redistributed: The tax scheme is progressive.

Moving on, the rest of the paragraph compares two tax schemes. This next part is troubling:

"So when poor parents receive a smaller credit than rich ones" means that there is a higher tax on poor parents that rich ones.

This is because a credit, or a rebate as mentioned in an earlier paragraph, means that after the individual has paid his or her taxes, they receive a part back. If that part is LARGE, the tax is SMALLER, and if that part is SMALL, the tax is LARGER. So if the poor parents receive a smaller credit, they are actually paying a larger tax. This is NOT the same as:

the childless poor paying a smaller surcharge than the childless rich.

The first scheme is NOT progressive, while the second scheme is, so they are not the very same tax scheme. If the first scheme gave poor parents larger credits, they would pay less taxes, which would be progressive, and thus the same as the second scheme. In this case, both schemes would seem fair.

It's late, maybe I'm tired and not getting the question right, but this, as it is, does not make total sense to me.

Check out: Greg Mankiw's Blog: A Fairness Paradox

Zoellick on Food Prices

2008-04-13T17:26:00.006-05:00

According to BBC News, Robert Zoellick, the World Bank Boss, has said:

"Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty."

So the problem has been going on for a while, but it is only catching on today. I wonder if this could have been foreseen...

Thinking about the so-called poverty trap a lot of people in poor countries are in right now, this could really turn into a vicious cycle, an economic plague if you will. First people couldn't afford food because they were poor, now, according to this, poor farmers will not benefit from higher food prices, but instead be hit even harder, pushing them to new limits of poverty that will impact their lives for the rest of their days. This all sounds a little too apocalyptic. Maybe its time to do something about it.

The IMF and the World Bank have been talking to each other, trying to figure out how to solve this crisis, according to the same article. If aid coming from these two monster agencies does find its way to poor people in poor countries, and not lost in bureaucracies, maybe something can and will be done. It's a matter of time. Could this become so big as to become the event of the year, even over the possible (and almost certain) US recession?

More on Food Prices

2008-04-13T09:10:00.007-05:00

Tony Karon at Time Magazine sheds some light on growing food prices:

The rapid industrialization of China and India over the past two decades — and the resultant growth of a new middle class fast approaching the size of America's — has driven demand for oil toward the limits of global supply capacity. That has pushed oil prices to levels five times what they were in the mid 1990s, which has also raised pressure on food prices by driving up agricultural costs and by prompting the substitution of biofuel crops for edible ones on scarce farmland. Moreover, those new middle class people are eating a lot better than their parents did — particularly more meat. Producing a single calorie of beef can, by some estimates, require eight or more calories of grain feed, and expanded meat consumption therefore has a multiplier effect on demand for grains. Throw in climate disasters such as the Australian drought and recent rice crop failures, and you have food inflation spiraling so fast that even the U.N. agency created to feed people in emergencies is warning that it lacks the funds to fulfill its mandate.

He also says that:

The reason officials such as Zoellick are sounding the alarm may be that the food crisis, and its attendant political risks, are not likely to be resolved or contained by the laissez-faire operation of capitalism's market forces. Government intervention on behalf of the poor — so out of fashion during globalization's roaring '90s and the current decade — may be about to make a comeback.

This relates to yesterday's post in a couple of ways. First we have a growing demand for an energy source, and it is clear that producers are facing a trade-off between farming for food products or for biofuel products. Plus we have this remark that the market by itself will probably not work this time, since the market being affected is one of basic NEEDS, and not WANTS, when supply is removed from the food market and placed in the biofuel market, driving up food prices. This means that people can't easily substitute away from food because of its high prices since there is no clear or easy to find substitute for food (food is thus price-inelastic). One could substitute between types of food, but apparently it is an industry-wide phenomenon. Therefore, rising food prices are a worrying situation. Keynesian economics is gaining new playing field.

The article also speaks about the riots that this is causing throughout the world. Although this is going on in market based societies, it is also happening in countries that are centrally planned to some extent. The world is interdependent, and no country can fend for itself nowadays. It is interesting to see how growing food prices can affect countries where prices are fixed.

Oh, and Zoellick is the World Bank boss. That's two large multilateral organizations worrying about food prices now.

Food Prices, Future Crisis

2008-04-12T22:05:00.020-05:00

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn has said that if prices of food keep rising, it will possibly cause starvation for a countless number of people.

BBC News quotes the IMF boss:

"Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives."

The same story posits some causes:

Food prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by increased demand, poor weather in some countries and an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels.

Almost 8 years into the twenty-first century, and a long way from the industrial revolution, one would think that this should not be happening.

It's puzzling to think about these crises when countries in the European Union and the United States are overproducing food thanks to sustained subsidies. Thinking about David Ricardo's comparative advantage, industrialized countries should have moved on a long time ago from producing staples (economists, think of the Heckscher-Ohlin model). The American or European worker could spend his time on a much more profitable endeavor, and leave the farming to those less specialized, labor intensive countries. Although this is true, it misses the point, since the problem today is a lack of food, and not whether the poor farmers in poor countries can compete with subsidized farmers in wealthy countries, so lets leave this discussion for a further post.

One of the causes seems to be the allocation of crops towards the creation of alternative fuels that would have otherwise been allocated towards food production. I know we are running out of oil, but is a trade-off between fuel or food considerable? The US has good oil reserves, and the world's oil is not due to expire for a while (although not a very long while). Maybe the answer lies on looking for a new source of energy, one that does not jeopardize the world's food supply. Or maybe it lies on a joint world initiative to empower poor African countries in the growing of crops that can be used for bio-fuel production. This would create a new supply of crops to meet the new demand for bio-fuel producing crops, and not a reallocation of current crops, which reduces food supply. Unfortunately, taking up this option is not likely to happen any time soon.

Markets and the price mechanism are amazing allocation instruments. However, when the outcome of one such market jeopardizes the human lives, creative solutions must be thought of. Lets start thinking then...

The Big Picture - A Starting Point

2008-04-12T20:33:00.010-05:00

The world is in constant motion.

The US Economy is under stress, the rest of the world is worried about it. Will it be something major for the history books? Or will it be just a bleep in the radar (or world growth charts for that matter)? This is probably the headline in many people's mind. Watching the news on a daily basis just keeps my mind turning: That's a good thing. By the way, the next President whoever he or she might be has quite a load to carry.

There is a world shortage of staple food. Didn't we get passed that with the Green Revolution? Are more green revolutions necessary? Jeff Sachs might have something to say about that, and how Africa is the place to do it in. If you haven't already, read his book, The End of Poverty, a real mind blower.

Speaking of Africa, What's going on in Zimbabwe? 100,000% Inflation? 2 weeks after voting took place, and still no results? Darfur...?

Moving on to South America, is socialism/communism taking on new life? A couple of weeks ago the whole continent almost erupted into war. Democratic Colombia, on a quest for ending its 40 year old war had to "invade" neighbouring Ecuador 1 mile into its border to take out a top rebel leader. Immediately, socialist friendly Venezuela urged Ecuador to send troops to their borders with Colombia. It was later learned that both these countries had ties with the rebels, and might have even talked about help on overthrowing the Colombian government. The plan would be to impose Venezuela's socialist government there as well. Can a socialist society really work in the globalized world that we live in? Aren't we too independent to risk untying a whole nation from world commerce (such as Cuba has)? Rumor has it Venezuelans can't even find milk on the shelves on the supermarkets. Wasn't the Soviet Union enough evidence for the impossibility of communism? Karl Marx was a great thinker, but many people really got his thoughts scrambled up.

So, Estern Europe, Is Medvedev taking over Putin, or as the Economist said a couple of weeks ago in its Cover Article, will Putin be directing the show from backstage? In this case backstage is the Prime-Ministership, so most people will be able to catch a glimpse of the director in action. Is this democracy, really? Moving around the area a bit, will Kosovo gain its independece?

Asia... This might take awhile, so I'll make it short. Tibet? Governments from all over the world boycotting the Olympic inaugural celebrations migh cause tensions... The middle east? Well, this is an issue that will last a while. The price of oil is past $110 a barrel ($110.14 on friday), and tensions between middle eastern countries, and between these countries and others on the western side of the world are not really helping with the issue. Although the price of oil is at record high, it seems to be causing less of a struggle than it did in the early 70's. The fact that many major economies' GDP is made up in a large part from services, and no so much by oil-dependent industries, might be the cause for this.

We could go on for a while, the world doesn't stop turning, except in the O'Reilly Factor set, according to Stephen Colbert!

This is (only a really small fraction of) the current state of the world. Let's take this as a starting point, and the set where our questions on economics and the thoughts that spin off from them are placed. This can only get better.

Hope Time is Not a Challenge...

2008-04-12T20:04:00.000-05:00

After reading Econ Blogs all over the web for quite some time now, I finally decided to start my own. As an Econ Student, time is always a scarce resource, but maybe this will become something worth allocating time to.

This blog begins at a moment in time where Economics is as useful a discipline as it has been for a couple of hundred years. No matter how advanced we might have become, and how much knowledge we might have accumulated, the world and the stuff going on in it is becoming somewhat harder, but more interesting, to try to understand. Questions are constantly popping into my mind, so I'll try to share some of them in this blog, and try to use some common sense, and some economics to shed some light onto them, two things that many times don't go exactly hand in hand.

Hope it is rewarding for me as for anyone who may come about reading it.

By the way, haven't you noticed how many Econ Blogs use this same layout?
Take for example Greg Mankiw's Blog, or the anonymous KZNZ. I even found a new one while trying to figure out my URL: EconStudent.
Other blogs I might refer to occasionally are Paul Krugman's NYTimes Blog or Brad DeLong's Website.