How Speculation Contributed to Two World Food Crises
The hypothesis that financial speculation was behind soaring food prices in 2007-08 and 2010-11, or at least substantially contributed to it, first surfaced in 2008 when ‘The Accidental Hunt Brothers’ Report by Masters and White (2008) drew a link between institutional investors’ positions in commodity futures markets and the significant and synchronised spike of commodity prices. Prices across commodities almost quadrupled between 2004 and 2008, including prices of key staples