Speakers

Ewout Frankema is professor of Economic and Environmental History at Wageningen University, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Global History and research fellow of the UK Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). His research agenda focuses on a deeper understanding of the long-term comparative economic development of developing regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia) and the historical origins and nature of present-day global inequality. Frankema has studied History, Economics and Philosophy at the University of Groningen, where he also obtained his PhD in Economics (2008). He has taught courses in history, economics and development studies at various universities in the Netherlands, as well as in Sweden, Benin, Uganda and Uruguay.

Talk: Diverging food prices in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. A global historical perspective

Abstract: Food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa are considerably higher than in Southeast Asia. Expensive food negatively affects food security, as well as the overall purchasing power of millions of rural and urban consumers. But why is food comparatively expensive in Africa? Why is food cheaper in Asia? And has this always been the case, or is this food price gap the product of divergent 20th century development paths? In this keynote lecture Ewout Frankema sets out to disentangle the puzzle of the food price gap, showing how these are historically embedded in broader cost and price structures of African and Asian economies, and how these have been affected differently by globalisation, long-term agricultural development and market interventions by local colonial and post-colonial governments.

« Go Back