Has the Food Price Bubble Burst?

A reception in the lobby of Encina Hall will follow the event.

Bursting the Bubble: A Long Run Perspective

What are the long run drivers of global food prices? Given current market developments, what are the prospects for food price changes over the coming decades?

Thomas Hertel is Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, where his research focuses on the global impacts of trade, climate and environmental policies. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Purdue University Research and Scholarship Distinction Award.  Professor Hertel is a former Cargill Visiting Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford.

Dr. Hertel is a Fellow, and Past-President, of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). He is also the founder and Executive Director of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) which now encompasses more than 10,000 researchers in 150 countries around the world (http://www.gtap.org). This Project maintains a global economic data base and an applied general equilibrium modeling framework which are documented in the book: Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and Applications, edited by Dr. Hertel, and published by Cambridge University Press in 1997.

Professor Hertel’s most recent research has focused on the impacts of climate change and mitigation policies on global trade, land use and poverty. During the 2011-12 year he was on leave at Stanford University, where he was engaged in inter-disciplinary research on these topics.

Previously, Professor Hertel has conducted research on the impacts of multilateral trade agreements, including the linkages between global trade policies and poverty in developing countries. His book: Poverty and the WTO (co-edited with L. Alan Winters) received the AAEA Quality of Communication award. Other AAEA awards include: Distinguished Policy Contribution and Outstanding Journal Article.

If the Food Price Bubble Burst, Would It Matter?

What are the economic and political implications of a bursting of the food price bubble?

Johan Swinnen is President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists, a Fellow of the AAEA (Association of (the US) Agricultural and Applied Economists ); a Fellow of the ERAE (European Association of Agricultural Economists). He is also President of The Beeronomics Society. He holds a Ph.D from Cornell University and a Honorary Doctorate from the Slovak Agricultural University.

He is currently Visiting Professor at the Centre for Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University and (since many years) Professor of Economics and Director of the LICOS-Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance -- a Centre of Excellence -- at the KU Leuven, Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy.

He was previously Lead Economist at the World Bank and Economic Advisor at the European Commission. He is a regular consultant for these organizations and for the OECD, FAO, the EBRD, and several Governments and was coordinator of several international research networks on food policy, institutional reforms, and economic development.

He has published widely on political economy, institutional reform, trade, global supply chains, product standards, agricultural policy and global food security. His publications have appeared in leading academic journals, such as the Journal of Economic Literature Science, and Nature.

This lecture is the first installment of FSE's Food and Nutrition Policy Symposium Series.