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Comprehensive empirical studies of the disarray in world agricultural markets appeared approximately 20 years ago. Since then, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has provided estimates each year of market distortions in high-income countries, but there have been no comparable estimates for the world's developing countries. This volume is the third in a series that not only fills that void for recent years but extends the estimates in a consistent and comparable way back in time's and provides analytical narratives for scores of countries that shed light on the evolving nature and extent of policy interventions over the past half-century. This title provides an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price and trade policies in the Arab Republic of Egypt plus 20 countries that account for about of 90 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's population, farm households, agricultural output, and overall GDP. Sectoral, trade, and exchange rate policies in the region have changed greatly since the 1950s, and there have been substantial reforms since the 1980s. Nonetheless, numerous price distortions in this region remain, others have been added in recent years, and there has also been some backsliding, such as in Zimbabwe. The new empirical indicators in these country studies provide a strong evidence based foundation for assessing the successes and failures of the past and for evaluating policy options for the years ahead.

OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted economies and health systems across the globe and has brought substantial challenges for food systems. Government responses key to minimizing disease spread have included a number of movement restriction policies (e.g., school closures, stay at home measures, etc.). Such policies have impacted food consumption and purchasing behaviours and have harmed much of the face-to-face type of labour required for food retailing, which in turn may have impacted the affordability of diets. We use evidence from 133 countries to investigate the association between stringency in movement restriction policies and retail price levels for food and other consumer goods. METHODS: We use the International Monetary Fund's monthly national consumer price index (CPI), and food and non-alcoholic beverage index (FCPI), as well as a ratio of FCPI to CPI—the food price index (FPI)—for 133 countries from January 2017 to November 2020. Data on stringency in movement restriction policies and COVID-19 cases and mortality per million were obtained from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, respectively. Fixed effects regression models were used to estimate the association between stringency of COVID-19 movement restrictions and monthly differences in 2020 retail price levels (from average 2017–2019 levels) of foods and other consumer goods, while controlling for pandemic severity in each country and month. RESULTS: Regression models yielded a positive and significant relationship between stringency level and FCPI level (coeff. = 1.24–1.91; 95% CIs: 0.25–2.79) or FPI level (coeff. = 1.24–2.14; 95% CIs: 0.60–2.53). Alternatively, stringency level was either negatively associated with CPI level (coeff. = −0.57; 95% CI: −1.06 – −0.07) or not significantly associated with CPI level. CONCLUSIONS: Government response stringency in COVID-19 movement restriction policies is linked with higher retail food price levels. Governments could ...

This paper tests the effectiveness of performance pay and bonuses among government childcare workers in India. In a controlled study of 160 ICDS centers serving over 4000 children, we randomly assign workers to either fixed bonuses or payments based on the nutritional status of children in their care, and also collect data from a control group receiving only standard salaries. In all three study arms mothers receive nutrition information. We find that performance pay reduces underweight prevalence by about 5 percentage points over 3 months, and height improves by about one centimeter. Impacts on weight continue when incentives are renewed and return to parallel trends thereafter. Fixed bonuses are less expensive but lead to smaller and less precisely estimated effects than performance pay, especially for children near malnutrition thresholds. Both treatments improve worker effort and communication with mothers, who in turn feed a more calorific diet to children at home.