Trading Suspensions and Food Price Inflation

Abstract

Since the global food price inflation of 2008-09, concerns regarding futures market speculation and its impact on food prices have grown. Conflicting results from existing studies highlight the limitation of the research design (Cheng and Xiong, 2014). We apply the synthetic control methodology to examine if futures trading suspensions bring down food prices. Analysing three recent agri-futures trading suspensions events from India, we find no empirical evidence that such suspensions impact food prices. The counterfactual for each episode indicates that even in the absence of such suspensions, food prices would have followed a similar trend. Our findings inform the policy debate on agricultural market interventions related to derivatives trading.

Keywords: food price inflation, agricultural derivatives, trading suspensions, synthetic control, India

JEL Classification: Q13, Q18, G1, G18