Date: 2017
Type: Article
Regulating excessive speculation : commodity derivatives and the global food crisis
International & comparative law quarterly, 2017, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 625-655
CHADWICK, Anna Elizabeth, Regulating excessive speculation : commodity derivatives and the global food crisis, International & comparative law quarterly, 2017, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 625-655
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59684
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Evidence suggests that commodity derivatives speculation contributed to extraordinary patterns of grain price volatility that led to a global food crisis in 2007-11. People in countries throughout the world are increasingly dependent on international commodity markets for access to food. Almost everywhere, now, the value of food is determined by a single condensed symbol of its worthits price. Persuaded of the need to ensure that this measure of value is not put at risk of distortion in the pursuit of financial profit, governments in the US and in the EU are now implementing new regulations designed to curb excessive' levels of speculation in derivative markets. Carrying out an analysis of these regulatory measures, the article demonstrates that both sets of reforms suffer from a critical limitation: They are predicated on an inaccurate understanding of how activity in commodity derivative markets can impact on underlying food prices. If the new regulations for commodity derivative markets are not up to the task, as this article argues that they are not, a more fundamental revision of global economic structures may be required if the basic needs of human beings are not to be subsumed to the interests of financial capital in the years to come.
Additional information:
Published online: 26 April 2017
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59684
Full-text via DOI: 10.1017/S0020589317000136
ISSN: 0020-5893; 1471-6895
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Files associated with this item
Files | Size | Format | View |
---|---|---|---|
There are no files associated with this item. |