Inflation

Reference:  
Asian Development Bank. “Special Report Food Prices and Inflation in Developing Asia: Is Poverty Reduction Coming to an End?” Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, Apr. 2008. Print.
Summary:
The special report entitled “Food Price and Inflation in Developing Asia: Is Poverty Reduction Coming to an End?” was published by Asian Development Bank (ADB) which is committed to help its developing member countries reduce poverty substantially and improve the quality of people’s life. Though, many member countries made their own success, there are still nearly 1.7 billion people in poverty, live on $2 or less a day. Due to the sharp increase of the food price since the middle of 2007, a research team led by William E. James of the Economics and Research Department was preparing for this report to propose appropriate policy responses to the inflation of food price.
The report is divided into 7 sections. The introduction part shows due to the raise of the income, growth of the population and the steadily rising of the agricultural productivity, food prices had been declining for decades. However, all these improvement lead to continuous growth in demand, and bring about a reversal of this long term trend. Since the inflation crisis take place in 2007 across the Asia and Pacific regions, the further rise in food price in 2008 reach the alarming level. The food price is such a worrisome matter because it’s huge harm to the poor.
In the second section, while the researchers are explaining the reasons behind the recent surge in food prices, the report states the necessity to explain the underlying causes of high food prices through three ways: Structural and Cyclical Factors, Demand and Supply Factors, and Domestic and World Markets.
In the following 3 section, the impacts due to the burst of the food crisis were shown by the researchers. The report clarifies some macroeconomic effects behind high and rising food prices in recent years through...