THE EFFECTS OF SWINGS IN GLOBAL WHEAT PRICES ON THE DOMESTIC MARKETS IN AFGHANISTAN

The recent shocks in global prices of cereals and the spillover effects of trade restrictive policies adversely affected domestic markets, particularly in the net food importing countries such as Afghanistan. This paper investigates the effects of 2007–2008 spikes in global wheat prices on the dynamics of price transmission and long-run equilibrium relationship between global and domestic wheat markets. The findings indicate that domestic and global wheat markets may be cointegrated in Regime-I (pre-break), Regime-II (post-break) and the overall sample period. Moreover, the elasticity of price transmission and speed of adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium are substantially different between the two regimes, i.e., they appear to be larger in Regime-I as compared to Regime-II. Similarly, the effect of a shock in global wheat prices on domestic wheat markets might be long-lasting in Regime-I but transitory in Regime-II. This research underlines the need for mitigating the adverse effect of spikes in global wheat prices on domestic wheat markets in the context of a landlocked net food importing country.