In times of highly volatile commodity markets, governments often try to protect their populations from rapidly rising food prices, which can be particularly harmful for the poor. A potential solution for food-deficit countries is to hold strategic reserves that can be called on when...

We propose a modification of Baulch's parity bounds model to measure the market integration of food markets in developing countries. Instead of extrapolating a single observation of transaction costs, we estimate transaction costs. Predicted transaction costs compare well with survey data of...