Seminar in International Economics: The impacts of economic sanctions on food (prices) security – Evidence from targeted countries

The Competence Centre for International Economics Research (FIW) kindly invites to participate in the Seminar in International Economics on the topic

The impacts of economic sanctions on food (prices) security: Evidence from targeted countries

Presenter: Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor (University of Guelph and Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative)
Discussant: Angela Cheptea (French Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE))

Abstract:
Our paper examines the causal impact of economic sanctions on both food prices and food security. Food prices serve as a pivotal gauge of food security, and the enforcement of economic sanctions may compound food security issues in the countries targeted by such measures. The examination of the impact of sanctions on food prices is of paramount importance, especially considering anecdotal evidence suggesting heightened food security concerns in nations subjected to sanctions. To ascertain the existence of a causal link between food prices and sanctions, we employ a two-way fixed-effects approach and leverage the entropy balancing technique, which replicates randomization in observational studies. Our analysis relies on two primary datasets: the recently developed Global Sanctions Database (GSDB) for measuring sanctions and FAOSTAT for evaluating food prices. Our results show that sanctions result in a real term increase in food prices as during the sanctions period, food prices are higher by 0.01-0.014 compared to non-sanctions period. Sanctions contribute to a higher prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) by 1.419-2.083.

The presentation if available, will be posted after the event.

The seminar series is organised by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) in co-operation with FIW and the European University Institute. The seminar provides a forum for presentation and discussion of recent academic research in the field of international economics.