Because of its enormous land and yield potentials, the breadbasket of the East, i.e. Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are increasingly important for world grain markets. However, counterproductive market and trade policies, continual farm-level productivity gaps and deficits in marketing...

Der Kornkammer des Ostens, namentlich Russland, der Ukraine und Kasachstan, wird aufgrund riesiger Flächen- und Ertragspotenziale eine zunehmende Bedeutung für die Weltgetreidemärkte zugesprochen. Allerdings blockieren widersinnige Markt- und Handelspolitiken, anhaltende betriebliche...

Because of its enormous land and yield potentials, the breadbasket of the East, i.e. Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are increasingly important for world grain markets. However, counterproductive market and trade policies, continual farm-level productivity gaps and deficits in marketing...

Agriculture plays an important role for Kazakhstan not only because of rural employment, but also because of the diversity it brings to its oil dependent economy. A considerable increase in grain exports was achieved during the recent years, however, there still is a large room for increasing...

It is an undisputed fact that weather risk increases over time due to climate change. However, qualification of this statement with regard to the type of weather risk and geographical location is needed. We investigate the application of novel statistical tools for assessing changes in weather...

Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt empirische Ergebnisse zur Analyse von Marktverhalten der russischen Exporteure auf den internationalen Märkten für Düngemittel vor. Der Fokus auf Russland begründet sich darin, dass das Land beim Einsturz des Kali-Kartells stark im Rampenlicht stand. Bei zwei...

Dieser Beitrag nimmt aus ökonomischer und wirtschaftsethischer Sicht kritisch Stellung zu dem von Foodwatch am 21. November 2013 vorgelegten Argumentationspapier. Er analysiert die hiermit verbundenen Positionsänderungen und Positionskorrekturen der "Hungermacher"-Kampagne gegen die...

This article sketches an ethics of (financial) speculation in futures markets. (1) It identi-fies an intentionalistic fallacy prevalent in moral criticisms of speculation in general and of financial speculation in particular. (2) It scrutinizes the degree to which the recent debate on financial...

This short essay on financial speculation with agricultural commodities offers (1) a sur-vey of the real economy factors that caused recent hunger crises, (2) an overview of academic research on the impact of index-based financial speculation on agricultural futures markets, and (3) a discussion...