Food prices are generally excluded from measures of inflation most closely watched by policymakers due either to their transitory nature or their higher volatility. However, in lower income countries, food price inflation is not only more volatile but also on average higher than nonfood inflation. Food inflation is also in many cases more persistent than nonfood inflation, and shocks in many countries are propagated strongly into nonfood inflation. Under these conditions, and particularly given high global commodity price inflation in recent years, a policy focus on measures of core inflation that exclude food prices can misspecify inflation, leading to higher inflationary expectations, a downward bias to forecasts of future inflation and lags in policy responses. In constructing measures of core inflation, policymakers should therefore not assume that excluding food price inflation will provide a clearer picture of underlying inflation trends than headline inflation.

This book addresses the important issue of food prices across EU Member States. Although recent attention has focused on events in world commodity markets following the spikes in world prices in 2007-2008 and 2011, there has been comparatively little attention addressing food price dynamics at the retail level. This volume addresses the characteristics of retail food price behaviour and the nature and drivers of price transmission across the EU. There are several inter-related features of the research reported here. First, the volume reports the characteristics of retail food inflation across the EU and the extent to which it differs from non-food inflation. Second, given the different experience of food inflation across EU Member States, it details the process of price transmission as shocks from upstream and world markets are passed through the food sector to the retail stage. Third, it addresses how the extent and nature of price transmission is determined by various aspects of competition throughout the domestic food sector and how the nature of vertical contracting between stages can determine the price transmission process. Finally, it outlines the potential of high-frequency, product-specific scanner data to address price dynamics and adjustment issues and how scanner data can also be used to measure food price inflation. The book will be of interest to researchers on price transmission and competition issues in the EU and, given the wider interest on these issues coupled with the novel use of scanner data, to researchers further afield. The contributions will also be of interest to policymakers and stakeholders as they seek to make sense of, and to address, regulation issues as they relate to the food sector.

High and persistent inflation has presented serious macroeconomic challenges in India in recent years, increasing the country’s domestic and external vulnerabilities. A number of factors underpin India’s high inflation. This book analyzes various facets of Indian inflation—the causes, consequences, and policies being implemented to manage it. Several chapters are devoted to analyzing and managing food inflation, given its significance in driving overall inflation dynamics in India.

Why write a book on macroeconomic policies and their links to agriculture and food security in developing countries? The food price spikes of the years just prior to 2010 and the economic, political, and social dislocations they generated refocused the attention of policymakers and development practitioners on the agricultural sector and food security concerns. But even without those traumatic events, the importance of agriculture for developing countries—and for an adequate functioning of the world economy— cannot be denied. First, although declining over time, primary agriculture still represents important percentages of developing countries’ overall domestic production, exports, and employment. If agroindustrial, transportation, commercial, and other related activities are also counted, then the economic and social importance of agriculture-based sectors increases significantly. Furthermore, large numbers of the world’s poor still live in rural areas and work in agriculture. Through the links via production, trade, employment, and prices, agricultural production is also crucial for national food security. Second, it has been shown that agriculture in developing countries has important growth and employment multipliers for the rest of the economy, and agriculture seems to have larger positive effects in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors. Third, agriculture is not only important for individual developing countries, but it has global significance, considering the large presence of developing countries in world agricultural production and the increasing participation in international trade of those products (these three points will be covered in greater detail in Chapter 1).

This volume is a collection of essays that provide a comprehensive coverage of multiple aspects of the discourse on environment, development and sustainability. It is designed to bring in a host of perspectives highlighting the synergies and the trade-offs in this debate, showcasing research along with policy implications of putting research into use. The global discussion on sustainability paints the broad canvas for this book. This volume aims to probe some contemporary issues that will help in understanding the sustainability narrative in India. The topics span over a host of questions on energy, environment, natural resources and related constituents of development. The discourse further extends to the role of economic modelling, public policy debates, political intervention, stakeholders’ response, community participation and so on. The discussions are often based on empirical support, review of existing literature as well as policy analysis. With an ultimate aim to understand the overall development narrative of the people of India, the discourse takes in its ambit the nuances of resource utilisation, economic growth, COVID-19 impacts, competitiveness and market structures, urbanization, sectoral reforms, environmental hazards, climate change, pollution, natural resource accounting and management to name a few. The book is divided into four sections, namely, The Big Picture: Evolving Perspectives; The Energy Scenario: Dilemmas and Opportunities; Sustainability Cross-Cuts: Developmental Aspects and Externality Empirics: Knowledge and Practice. The first section contains commentaries on the overarching themes of economic growth, development and sustainability. It presents some emerging perspectives on the developmental crisis that has emerged through the environmental lens with additional focus on the need for inclusion of creativity, knowhow, technology and financial resources to achieve the ambitious SDG targets. The second section brings out the dilemmas and opportunities in the energy sector, that has been a key player in discussions of sustainability, especially for India where significant technological advances in conventional forms of energy supply coexists with fairly low levels of per capita energy consumption and energy security is a key challenge. The section on sustainability crosscuts attempts to highlight the problems and processes of mainstreaming the sustainability question into conventional thinking through the concepts of a circular economy, green accounting techniques, institutional and governance structures, public policy and inclusive growth, amongst others. The last section presents some empirical studies on environmental externalities, the unaccounted environmental effects of economic production and consumption and finally the behavioural aspects of the stakeholders that are crucial in the larger narrative of sustainable development. This edited volume contains contributions of reputed scholars from various Indian universities, research institutions and professionals from outside academia, who are proven experts in their fields. The link between policy, practice, and well-being of the large vulnerable population of India is the major focus of enquiry that will help researchers, practitioners and policy planners in conducting further research in energy, environment, resource and linked areas of development economics. General readers with an active interest in energy, environment, and economic development are also likely to find this book an interesting read, especially in the times of several environmental challenges facing humankind.

Inflation in Mongolia resembles a roller coaster ride with sharp rises and steep drops. Understanding why is critical for formulating and assessing monetary policy. Food prices are found to be a key driver of inflation, and, not surprising given Mongolia’s geography, are determined primarily by local supply conditions, highly seasonal, and subject to large but short-lived shocks (usually weather related). Nonetheless, demand factors are also found to be significant in explaining price movements and empirical evidence suggests that a 10 percent increase in government wages, for example, would push up underlying inflation by 1 percentage point. So, while inflation will remain volatile due to agricultural shocks, there is space for macroeconomic stabilization policy to help reduce inflation volatility.

This paper analyses inflation dynamics in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) using a constructed dataset for country-specific commodity price indices and panel cointegrated vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Imported commodity price shocks are significant in explaining inflation in the region. Governments are another driving force of inflation dynamics mainly through controlled prices and the role of capital expenditure in domestic activity. In most CEMAC countries, the largest effect of global food and fuel prices occurs after four or five quarters in noncore inflation and then decays substantially over time. Second-round effects are significant only in Cameroon and to a lesser extent in the Republic of Congo.