The starting point of Paul Streeten's book is the dilemma, faced by policy makers in many developing countries: should the price of food be high, in order to stimulate production, or low, in order to prevent poor food buyers from starving? The author goes on to discuss the role of prices in the light of these and other objectives. 'It is the work of one of our wisest scholars on what I consider to be the key policy issue for economic development in the 1980s...this provocative essay will be required reading for anyone working on agricultural price policy.' C.Peter Timmer 'It provides solid and practical guidance to scholars and decision-makers. It is lucid, balanced and, above all, useful.' Robert Klitgaard 'Paul Streeten is well known for his gift of explaining the pros and cons of difficult policy issues in a clear, simple and realistic way, appealing to policy-makers, students and the wider development community, as well as to academic colleagues. This gift is fully displayed in his new book, and readers are bound to emerge with a better awareness of the conflicts and policy reforms which are involved.' H.W.Singer

Attempts to connect the diverse aspects of appropriate price policy in the following sequence: 1) the implementation issues and impact on the domestic marketing sector, 2) the nature of the world market price, 3) the disaggregated effects on producers and consumers, 4) the short-run macro effects on budgetary, fiscal, and monetary policy, 5) the impact of macro prices, especially the foreign exchange rate, 6) the spillover effects of price policy for one commodity market on other commodity and factors markets, on the agricultural sector as a whole, and on the entire economy, 7) the dynamic effects on employment, investment, and economic growth (Author).

The international environment for national price policies; Domestic market intervention; Production response, technology, and commercialization; Consumers' welfare.