Did the Fertilizer Cartel Cause the Food Crisis?

Konferenzbeitrag

Food commodity prices escalated during the 2007/2008 food crisis, and have scarcely fallen since. We show that high fertilizer prices, driven by the formation of an international export cartel as well as high energy prices, explains the majority of the recent price spikes. In particular, we estimate the pure fertilizer cartel effect explains up to 50% of crisis food price increases. While population growth, biofuels, high energy prices and financial speculation doubtlessly put stress on food markets, our results help to understand the severity and sudden emergence of the crisis and suggest avenues to prevent its repetition.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2016: Demographischer Wandel - Session: International Trade and Development ; No. A19-V2

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Trade: General ; Antitrust Issues and Policies: General ; Commodity Markets

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gnutzmann, Hinnerk ; Spiewanowski, Piotr
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel und Hamburg
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/145777
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET