We present the largest homogenous dataset of grain prices for four major types of grain for pre-industrial Germany covering 70 cities with a total of 259 time series. This article describes the sources and the methodology followed to create calendar-year-based price series in grams of silver per...

This article leverages uniquely abundant town-level data to examine spatial inequality in prices and wages during the First Globalisation. I build a new dataset on prices of traded and household goods, and wages of skilled and unskilled workers for a panel of 42 towns in Serbia, in the period...

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia raises several questions and uncertainty about the cereal supply chain and market trends. This international crisis and other factors influencing the market, such as the environmental and climate ones, have placed greater attention on Italy's dependence on...

Der Ukrainekrieg hat zu einem Rückgang der Weizenausfuhren aus Russland und der Ukraine nach Afrika geführt, die jedoch durch gesteigerte Exporte anderer Länder nahezu ausgeglichen wurden. Weltweite Beschränkungen der Weizenexporte sowie die Unsicherheit, dass Russland seine Getreideexporte...

Der Ukrainekrieg hat gravierende Auswirkungen auf die internationalen Agrarmärkte, da sowohl die Ukraine als auch Russland auf dem Weltmarkt eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Schon vor Beginn des Angriffskrieges waren die Getreidepreise auf einem hohen Niveau, was auf eine bereits angspannte...

The paper presents the evolution of the market for the main cereal crops (wheat, corn, barley) at the national level in the period 2017-2021. These cereals, as well as others, constitute one of the groups of food carriers that occupy the largest share of the total food consumed, representing for...

Using monthly data from January 1998 to May 2021, this study investigates the asymmetric impact of global economic policy uncertainty on international grain prices by using nonlinear autoregressive distribution lag (NARDL). We find that there is a positive relationship between global economic...

It is widely recognized that climate change makes the weather more erratic. Since the combination of temperature and precipitation is a major driver ofgrain crop productivity, more frequent extreme rainfalls and heat waves, flooding and draught tend to make grain production and hence grain...

Detecting data manipulation in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) reveals that such cheating behavior has persisted in modern China, for centuries. Qing prefectural officials were responsible for collecting and reporting local grain price data. We use the fact that grain prices are seasonal and grain...

Persistent increases in basic food prices have become a critical challenge in Ethiopia since 2006. This paper assesses whether the structure of the grain market has contributed to the price increases. Traders having market power could create commodity price stickiness, implying that what goes up...

Prevailing views suggest the Industrial Revolution began in Europe because markets had gradually become more efficient and by the 18th century the scope of economic activity was far larger than in other parts of the world. This paper compares the actual performance of markets in Europe and...

The paper examines regional determinants of grain price convergence in the Russian Empire in 1880-1913. I consider data of two levels of spatial aggregation: province and newly constructed district price data. I investigate that regional production factors, i.e. crop yield, difference in land...

In this paper, the short and the long-run potential impact of higher maize and sorghum prices on households' welfare, poverty and income inequality in Togo are estimated using households survey data in a compensating variation analysis framework. Results have shown that, while households are on...

This article examines the integration of regional Scottish grain markets from the early seventeenth century until the end of the long eighteenth century in 1815. The Scottish economy developed rapidly in this period, with expansion driven by improvements in market structures and specialisation...

Existing literature has not yet identified the common determinants of price volatility transmission in agricultural commodities from international to local markets and has rarely investigated the role of self-sufficiency measures in the context of national food security. We analyzed several...

The impact of drought on household welfare is the cumulative effect of crop losses and price changes in a local economy that are triggered by these initial losses. This paper combines data on monthly grain prices and wages in 82 retail markets over 17 years with data on district-level weather...

We examine the different functions of the government and of local elites in eighteenth-century China by considering their responses to grain price fluctuations, which were the largest shocks to traditional agrarian society. Descriptive evidence has indicated that both the government and the...

International grain prices experienced a sharp increase during the 2020/2021 marketing season, most likely due to the unprecedented increase of imported grains by China. What would be the possible impact on international grain markets if China remains a strong grain importer? The scenario...

Der Start des Ukraine-Russland-Krieges -- Zeitenwenden im Ukraine-Russland-Krieg -- Der Westen und Russland – Beziehungsstille zwischen Großbritannien und Russland über Jahrzehnte -- Energie-Perspektiven -- Russland-Energieimport-Boykott durch Deutschland und die EU als Politikoption? --...

Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial inter-temporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely unexploited: small-scale farmers are commonly observed to "sell low and buy high" rather than the...

This paper evaluates a well-known approach from the economic history literature that uses grain prices to shed light on interest rates. Although this method has been applied in influential work starting with McCloskey and Nash (1984) and has potentially wide applicability in situations where...

Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial inter-temporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely unexploited: small-scale farmers are commonly observed to "sell low and buy high" rather than the...

This paper evaluates an approach popularized by McCloskey and Nash (1984) that exploits the fact that grain prices provide information on interest rates. While the grain price approach enables a comparative analysis of capital market development across pre-modern economies and has been applied...