ABSTRACT
Throughout history price instability of necessities (basic food such as grain) has concerned rulers and their subjects. Rulers feared the political consequences of price volatility, while the common people were hurt by it. Grain supply policies have therefore been practiced, not always with much success, from antiquity to the present. Food markets have also been studied by economists from the formative years of classical economics to modern development economics. We will explore the insights from centuries of economic thought in this chapter.
