The impacts of economic sanctions on food (prices) security : evidence from targeted countries

Abstract

Our paper examines economic sanctions’ impact on food prices and security. Anecdotal evidence suggests food security is threatened in nations subjected to sanctions. However, the causal link has not been proven. We employ a two-way fixed-effects approach and leverage the entropy balancing technique to ascertain the existence of a causal link. Our analysis relies on the Global Sanctions Database for sanctions and the FAOSTAT database for food security proxies: food prices and prevalence of undernourishment (PoU). Sanctions increase food prices: during the sanctions period, real food prices are higher by 1.24% compared to the non-sanctions period. Although the increase in food prices is marginal, overall food security is threatened, as the PoU is 2.1 percentage points higher during sanctions compared to periods without sanctions.