Market speculation

Seven ways to improve market regulation

If you want to reduce crime, you have to make sure there are enough cops on the beat. Something similar can be said for market regulation. We can’t expect markets to work if we don’t invest resources into making sure government agencies have the right regulatory tools at their disposal and have adequate resources to effectively implement and enforce the rules.

Carbon markets: performance and alternatives

Produced for Economic Perspectives on Global Sustainability by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policies (CEESP).

EU takes a crucial step toward market regulation

After the disastrous financial collapse in 2008, the commodity  and  financial market regulatory reform process on both sides of the Atlantic has been a series of promising but halting steps, all too often two steps forward and one step back.

Food crisis update: Main drivers of price volatility still not addressed

Last year international food markets suffered their third price spike in five years. The trigger was a terrible drought in the United States—a major agricultural producer and exporter. An unstable climate met low levels of international grain reserves, while U.S. ethanol gobbled up maize supplies.

Five questions for Frederick Kaufman, author of Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food

In 2010, journalist Frederick Kaufman wrote in Harper’s Magazine about how Wall Street speculators wreaked havoc with wheat markets and, in turn, helped drive the 2008-09 food price crisis.

A year of squandered opportunities to resolve the food crisis

January 31, 2013 – A drought in the United States last year sparked the third price spike in international food commodity markets in the last five years, again pushing maize, wheat, and soybean prices to record highs. Why are we still seeing such volatility six years after prices shot up in 2007? Have global leaders taken action to address the causes of this new food crisis?

Deutsche Bank and the fine art of self-exoneration

On January 19, Deutsche Bank (DB) issued “Questions and Answers on investments in agricultural commodities”.  The DB stated that after an internal examination, it was resuming investments in agricultural derivatives contracts that it had suspended since March 2011.

Risky Business: The future of agriculture

Hard on the heels of Oxfam’s Food and Gender Discussion Blog, in which ten experts provided ten views over ten days intended to reframe food security from the perspective of women’s rights and women’s agency comes another Oxfam online forum for debate on agriculture called "The Futu

The Common Denominator

IATP President Jim Harkness presented the following address to the attendees of the 11th Hour Project's grantee gathering on October 11, 2012. See a video of his remarks below. Good morning.

An open letter to G-20 finance ministers: The world needs leadership on finance reform

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Government of the United Kingdom Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, European Commission Ikko Nataksuka, Minister of State for Financial Services, Government of Japan