The global population is forecasted to reach 9.4 billion by 2050, with much of this increase concentrated in developing regions and cities. Ensuring adequate food and nourishment to this large population is a pressing economic, moral and even security challenge and requires research (and action)...

Can discretionary fiscal policy effectively stimulate output? This paper examines this question in the context of developing Asia, where many countries implemented fiscal stimulus measures to support domestic demand during the global crisis. Economic conditions normalized after the crisis but...

In the wake of recent food price spikes, plus growing demands for food in emerging Asia and for biofuels in Europe and the United States, governments are reexamining their strategies for dealing with both short-term and long-term food security concerns. This paper argues that long-run trends in...

In recent years, rising food prices have returned as a concern for policy makers especially in developing countries. In this context, this paper examines how supply shocks, both domestic and foreign, have mattered to imports and consumption in the global rice market over 1960–2010. Such an...

Many countries adopted safety net programs to deal with the food crisis of 2008. However, such programs are often beset with targeting errors, inefficiencies, and fraud. Despite this, there is no systematic comparative analysis of safety nets. The objective of this paper is to identify generic...

This paper studies the targeting outcomes of a self-targeted rice subsidy program in the Philippines. We find modest within-community targeting outcomes, but weak between-community targeting. This appears to be because, controlling for the direct influence of household characteristics,...

Stabilization of prices is an important element of food policy in India as in most other countries - both developing and developed. However, since the magnitude of grain stocks held for this purpose as well as the costs of physical storage have become prohibitively high, there is now a need for...

This paper measures the percolation of food subsidy expenditures to th e poor. The paper proposes a metric that takes into account the depth and width of income transfer. The metric is applied to food subsidy expenditures in India and Philippines. Both countries operate in-kind transfer schemes....

Theft rates from subsidized food programs vary greatly and strongly influence program efficiency. Unfortunately, the determinants of these variations remain understudied because the agencies that run these programs seldom publicize the allocations of subsidized food to local markets. We develop...

"This study evaluates the domestic and international trade and marketing policies in India and analyzes the effects of deregulating domestic markets and liberalizing external trade on the food grain sector. Historically, India's food policy has involved heavy government intervention in all...