Suchergebnisse

Keynes proposed that a 'Commod Control' agency be created after the Second World War to stabilise spot prices of key internationally traded commodities by systematically buying and selling physical buffer stocks. In this paper, the creation of a new Global Commodity Insurer (GCI) is discussed that would operate an international Commodity Price Insurance (CPI) scheme with the objective of protecting national government revenues, spending and investment against the adverse impact of short-term deviations in commodity prices, and especially oil prices, from their long-run equilibrium level. Crude oil is the core commodity in this scheme because energy represents 50% of world commodity exports, and oil price shocks have historically had a significant macroeconomic impact. In effect the GCI would develop a new international market, which is currently missing, designed to protect governments against the risk of declines in their fiscal revenue, and increases in the level of claims on that income especially from social programmes, brought about by short-term commodity price shocks. GCI would take advantage of the rapid growth of trading in derivative securities in the global capital market since the 1980s by selling CPI insurance contracts tailored to the specific commodity price exposure faced by national government, and offsetting the resulting price risk with a portfolio of derivative contracts of five-year or longer maturities, supplied by banks, insurers, reinsurers, investment institutions, and commodity trading companies, with investment grade credit ratings. The difference between the CPI and a buffer stock or export/import control scheme is that it would mitigate the macro-economic shocks posed by commodity price volatility, but not attempt to control commodity prices. The cost of the CPI scheme is estimated by simulating 5-year commodity price paths using a standard log price mean reverting model parameterised from an econometric analysis of commodity price time series.

Using choice experiments, we estimate the willingness to pay for price insurance among cotton and paddy farmers in the Indian state of Gujarat. We also identify the interactions between the demand for price insurance and existing informal and formal risk management mechanisms. Our results indicate that cotton farmers value price insurance more than paddy farmers. Also, most of the existing informal risk management strategies seem to have a positive effect on the demand for price insurance, suggesting potential complementarities. Important policy implications on the design and bundling of innovative financial products follow from our findings. JEL Classification: D81, D01, G13

In 2005 the EU lowered the guaranteed minimum prices for crops in its Common Agricultural Policy and stopped market interventions. Consequently, prices started to fluctuate more intensively, and farmers' incomes are now subject to higher price volatility. A crop price insurance scheme could provide an interesting instrument to stabilise the income of European farmers. We analyse the premium level and capital requirement of a hypothetical insurance contract covering several combinations of minimum prices for a bundle of wheat, maize, and rape seed. The premium level is based on the Black option pricing model and a Bayesian autoregressive stochastic volatility model. Monte Carlo simulated forecasts provide estimates for expected variances and a profit-loss distribution for various combinations of minimum prices. The required solvency capital to keep the insurance business afloat at the 1 percent ruin probability creates capital costs exceeding the expected profit.

AbstractChina's agricultural support policies are moving towards market institutions through a quasi‐market transition. Ten years of direct minimum purchase price procurement on agricultural commodities resulted in overcapacity, oversupply, mixed‐market signals and grey‐market imports. The Insurance Plus Futures (保险 + 期货) policy pilot in agricultural price reform is a leading indicator of reform in China's agricultural production and rural finance architecture. State procurement of staple crops is now ending, and an interim governance structure is in place for the transition to market prices. This article assesses the historical institutional development of three key economic institutions in Chinese agricultural production: agricultural prices, insurance and futures. It examines government plans to move from a centrally procured to a provincially variable agricultural production model, examines the provincial sectoral target‐price mechanisms constructed in 2016–2018 as interim price‐setting mechanisms, looks at the emergence of government mandated agricultural insurance as a measure to cover the subsidy previously served by the minimum purchase price system and assesses the prospects for institutional development of futures contracts, commodities exchanges and price formation institutions in China.