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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Sasha C. Breger Bush |
| Abstract: | This paper critically engages the World Bank’s recent experiments in providing marketbased price risk management for coffee farmers. Using the case of Mexico and the recent 1998–2002 coffee crisis, I argue that such advocacy of farm-level use of derivatives markets entails large direct and indirect costs for coffee farmer wellbeing. This is especially so for smallholders. Not only might hedging with derivatives further destabilise and reduce producer incomes, but the opportunity cost of the Bank’s advocacy, in terms of foregone risk management alternatives, is also problematic. I conclude with a discussion of several risk management alternatives that may better support small coffee producers facing volatile commodity prices. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:11310&r=pke |
| By: | David Hulme; James Scott |
| Abstract: | In September 2010 world leaders will meet in New York to discuss progress in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include the promise of halving ‘extreme poverty’ between 1990 and 2015. The paper begins with a brief history of how the MDGs came into being (See Table 1 for a list and other details), noting that they were primarily a product of the rich world, before looking at the progress made in achieving them and the degree to which the rich countries have lived up to the promises they made as part of Goal 8. The final section draws lessons from the MDG process to feed into the debate concerning what will take their place in 2015 when they come to an end. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:11010&r=pke |