ABSTRACT

This chapter shows how policies toward wages, employment, and migration; the prices of staple foods, meat and dairy products, and animal feeds; and mechanization have far-reaching interactive effects and consequently must be designed as an integrated policy package. It begins by studying the complex interactions among the effects of five sets of prices that have been manipulated to different degrees by policy interventions: rural wages, the price of food, the price of machinery, the price of meat and dairy products, and the price of animal feeds. The prices of staple foods have been held down in Egypt through a system of price controls, forced deliveries at mandated prices, and subsidized imports. Price controls at the consumer level have been more effective in the urban than the rural sector where the distribution of subsidized food through public outlets is less extensive.