The recent volatility of prices of major grains has generated a wide array of economic interpretations and policy prescriptions. In this lecture, Professor Wright will review some of these interpretations and the associated empirical evidence.
Professor Wright is Professor and Chair of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include economics of markets for storable commodities, market stabilization, agricultural policy, industrial organization, public finance, invention incentives, intellectual property rights, the economics of research and development, and the economics of conservation and innovation of genetic resources. He has co-authored or co-edited several books, including Storage and Commodity Markets; Reforming Agricultural Commodity Policy; Saving Seeds: The Economics of Conserving Genetic Resources at the CGIAR Centers, and Accessing Biodiversity and Sharing the Benefits: Lessons from Implementing the Convention on Biodiversity and published extensively in the leading journals in Economics and Agricultural Economics.