Commodities

The livelihoods of more than 2.5 billion people directly depend on the production and trade in primary commodities like rice, cotton and copper. At a family level, farmers and workers rely on commodity production for the cash incomes which they use to pay for foods, school fees and healthcare. At the national level, 95 of the 141 developing countries derive at least half of their foreign exchange earnings from commodity exports.

Consequently, the nature, accessibility and health of the international commodity markets have a very significant impact on people and governments. Our work in this area focuses on at least three distinction dimensions. First are the barriers to trade that deny developing countries huge potential revenues from the trade in commodities. Second are the growing environmental standards that developing country exporters need to navigate. Third are the volatile prices on international commodity markets that complicate fiscal planning and undermine livelihoods.



Research