Speaker: Dr. 吕一飞 (Yifei Lv)

Title: The Macroeconomic Effects of International Food Price Shocks on Developing Countries: Evidence from China

Schedule: Nov 21, TH 13:30-15:00 PM

Location: 诚明楼 (Chengming Hall), Rm 315

Introduction: 吕一飞，加利福尼亚大学圣地亚哥分校经济学博士，中国人民大学应用经济学院助理教授，经济波动与宏观政策教研室主任。吕一飞博士的研究兴趣为国民经济学，新质生产力，经济波动与增长。他的研究成果已发表在包括 Energy Economics, Economic Inquiry, Economic Letters, Applied Economics 等国际期刊。吕一飞博士主持一项国家自科基金青年项目，并参与一项国家社科基金重大项目。

Abstract: This paper estimates the macroeconomic effects of disruptions in global food commodity markets on China, the largest developing country. A 10% exogenous increase in international food prices, identified using a structural VAR with unanticipated harvest shocks as an external instrument, leads to a persistent decline in China’s real GDP of 1.5%. The CPI increases by 1.2% at its peak but turns below its original level after three years. Both consumption and investment drop significantly. International food price shocks are an important source of China’s economic fluctuations, accounting for over 10% of output movements. Extending the baseline model to a time-varying parameter VAR with stochastic volatility, we find that the transmission of international food price shocks was remarkably large in the late 1980s, an episode of high inflation, then diminished over time and remained stable after the millennium.