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Abstract
These three invited papers examine the role that exchange rates may have in influencing
commodity prices, input prices and farm income. The papers arguably represent one of the
most important recent attempts to quantify and explain these new linkages. As U.S. and world
agriculture moves from a period of high output prices to a period of lower prices, understanding
the impact of macroeconomic variables on farm input costs and farm income will
become more important. Further, it will be equally important for policy makers to undertake
appropriate market interventions in order to have maximum effectiveness should this period
of cost-price-squeeze continue to intensify. Each of the papers has something significant to
contribute to the understanding and debate of these new linkages between agriculture, the
macroeconomic environment, and the energy sector.