Rich Schroeppel wrote:
>So I'm wondering: Has anyone done an estimate of how many deaths
>are caused by, say, a 10c/lb increase in the price of rice or
>potatoes? There are concretely identifiable victims in Indonesia
>of the present economic crisis, but I'm wondering about the less
>visible effects on the poor. Would it make sense to say that a 1c
>increase kills 1/10 as many?
My understanding is that it is a mistake to think in terms of a
global market for food with a global price. Starvation typically
happens because the local price is high, a local price which
differs from prices elsewhere due to failures of the distribution
system. This year's Nobel prize in econ winner, Sen, was widely
quoted as having done seminal work in this area.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884
Received on Thu Jan 14 14:51:19 1999
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