New primer on excessive speculation in agricultural commodity markets

IATP has just released a first-of-its-kind collection of writings about excessive speculation in commodity markets and the toll it has taken on agricultural prices. Excessive Speculation in Agricultural Commodity Markets: Selected Writings from 2008–2011 includes a total of 19 different pieces covering everything from the basics of what speculation in commodity markets looks like to why such speculation is responsible for the agricultural price crisis, as well as information on regulating excessive speculation.

In the foreward, IATP's Steve Suppan writes:

As former National Director of Intelligence Dennis Blair told a stunned U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 12, 2009, the global economic crisis, triggered by financial and commodity market deregulation, has replaced Al-Qaeda as the number one U.S. national security threat. Blair’s intelligence agencies forecast widespread regime destabilization if the economic crisis continued to fester without major policy and political reform within two years. His agencies did not specify what reforms were needed nor advocate for their enforcement. That is up to us.

Among others, the extensive list of authors includes Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael W. Masters and Adam K. White, Daryll E. Ray, Harwood D. Schaffer, David Frenk and IATP's own Steve Suppan.

Download the full text, or each section individually:

Full Text: Excessive Speculation in Commodity Markets: Selected Writings from 2008–2011

Table of Contents and Foreword

Section I. Overview

Section II. Excessive Speculation and the Agricultural Price Crisis

Section III. Regulating Excessive Speculation