Distributional Effects of Maize Price Increases in Malawi.

In the wake of highly volatile world prices of staple commodities, we examine the impacts of increases in maize prices on various categories of households in Malawi. Using household-level data, changes in household income are calculated taking into account the net maize production status of the hous...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Development Studies Vol. 50; no. 2; pp. 258 - 276
Main Authors: Caracciolo, Francesco, Cembalo, Luigi, Lombardi, Alessia, Thompson, Gary
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Feb2014
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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Summary:In the wake of highly volatile world prices of staple commodities, we examine the impacts of increases in maize prices on various categories of households in Malawi. Using household-level data, changes in household income are calculated taking into account the net maize production status of the household and food price elasticities estimated from a censored demand system. While maize price increases have unequivocal deleterious effects on the incomes of urban households, rural households experience differential impacts. Net producing households in rural areas benefit from price increases with households above the poverty line obtaining proportionally higher incomes.