One of my favorite agriculture researchers in the United States is Tim Wise of Tufts University. Turns out, he writes for my new favorite economics blog, Triple Crisis, in which rogue (i.e., non-neoclassical) economists analyze in plain English the globe’s financial, development, and environmental crises (manifesto here).

Wise has an extremely interesting recent post on the question of ag-commodity prices and poverty in the global south. What happens to poor people when prices for basic foodstuffs like rice and wheat rise? Wise shows that the conventional view goes like this: it depends on whether you are a net seller of food (i.e., a farmer), for whom higher prices are beneficial; or a net buyer (e.g., an urban dweller), for whom higher prices are harmful. Not so fast, Wise argues, citing new research.

Higher ag prices, it turns out, have an interesting effect: they can improve livelihoods for small-scale farmers and urban residents alike. How? When ag prices drop, people flee the countryside for the city, depressing wages for urban workers. Low-resource people in countryside and in cities both lose.