Varshney Deepak, Roy Devesh, Meenakshi J V
South Asia Region, International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.
Indian Econ Rev. 2020;55(Suppl 1):83-103. doi: 10.1007/s41775-020-00095-1. Epub 2020 Aug 24.
This paper assesses the impact of the spread of COVID-19 and the lockdown on wholesale prices and quantities traded in agricultural markets. We compare whether these impacts differ across non-perishable (wheat) and perishable commodities (tomato and onion), and the extent to which any adverse impacts are mitigated by the adoption of a greater number of agricultural market reform measures. We use a granular data set comprising daily observations for 3 months from nearly 1000 markets across five states and use a double- and triple- difference estimation strategy. Expectedly, our results differ by type of commodity and period of analysis. While all prices spiked initially in April, they recovered relatively quickly, underscoring the importance of time duration for analysis. Wheat prices were anchored in large part by the minimum support price, while tomato prices were lower in some months. Supply constraints began easing in May with greater market arrivals perhaps reflecting distress sales. Market reform measures did help in insulating farmers from lower prices, but these effects are salient for the perishable goods, and not so much for wheat where the government remained the dominant market player. Taken together, these results point to considerable resilience in agricultural markets in dealing with the COVID-19 shock, buffered by adequate policy support.
本文评估了新冠疫情蔓延及封锁措施对农产品市场批发价格和交易量的影响。我们比较了这些影响在不易腐坏商品（小麦）和易腐坏商品（番茄和洋葱）之间是否存在差异，以及通过采取更多农业市场改革措施能在多大程度上减轻负面影响。我们使用了一个粒度数据集，该数据集包含来自五个邦近1000个市场的三个月每日观测数据，并采用双重差分和三重差分估计策略。不出所料，我们的结果因商品类型和分析时期而异。虽然所有价格在4月份最初都出现了飙升，但随后相对较快地恢复，这凸显了分析时间跨度的重要性。小麦价格在很大程度上由最低支持价格稳定，而番茄价格在某些月份较低。随着市场到货量增加，供应限制在5月份开始缓解，这可能反映了被迫出售。市场改革措施确实有助于保护农民免受低价影响，但这些影响在易腐坏商品方面较为显著，而在小麦方面则不太明显，因为政府在小麦市场仍占主导地位。综合来看，这些结果表明，在适当的政策支持下，农产品市场在应对新冠疫情冲击方面具有相当的韧性。
