地点：浙江大学紫金港校区创意楼A座729会议室
主讲人：于晓华教授
题目：Gravity With LASSO: Global Cereal Trade With Factors of Income, Conflicts, COVID-19, China, Climate Change, And Currency (“6Cs”)
摘要：Global and open trade supports peace, economic prosperity and food security worldwide, but it is today subject to fluctuations that have roots in multi-dimensional factors. A number of developments currently threaten operating trade networks and have implications for food security: increasing conflicts along cereal trade routes, supply-chain disruptions due to Covid-19, increasing domination of China over the global trade of goods, fluctuating yields due to climate change, and high domestic inflation, in particular of food items, that affect exchange terms. Policy response is typically to impose restriction on exports (bans or quotas) and import (increasing tariffs) in order to isolate domestic economies, form fluctuation of the world economies. These are viewed as short-terms responses that tend to export a country’s own vulnerability, further adding volatility of global markets instead of stabilizing it. In order to respond to these challenges adequately, policy makers require an appreciation of the relative importance of these threats against each other. This paper first conceptualizes the 6C (Income Conflicts, Covid-19, China, Climate change and Currency), the current features most susceptible to affect global trade of food products. Second, the paper combines a gravity model of trade with the machine learning LASSO technique to identify the features most relevant to trade flows of cereals in recent years. This paper contributes to the literature on trade system resilience and food security by looking jointly at several disrupting factors, rather than at single factors separately, in order to assess their relative influence on trade. Results indicate that climate change and high food prices have a more frequent association with trade flows, compared to more abrupt events such as COVID or conflicts. Finally, regional results show that African exports and imports are less tied to global fluctuations than other regions, probably due to lesser integration. The role of China in international trade is also a driving force, especially for Europe and Asian markets. Overall, predictors of trade vary across regions, crop and role as buyer or seller. The results can inform policy makers on the need to prioritize policy responses.
主讲人简介：
于晓华，德国哥廷根大学发展与转型国家农业经济学讲席教授，农业经济与农村发展系系主任。2009年毕业于美国宾州州立大学，获得农业经济学与人口学双博士。2009年起任教于德国哥廷根大学，主要研究方向为农业经济学、发展经济学、以及行为经济学等。2022年9月至2023年3月在康奈尔大学Johnson商学院担任访问教授。曾经或现在担任Agricultural Economics，China Economic Review等国际期刊副主编或者编委；以及非洲农业研究论坛（Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa）、联合国粮农组织2024年度报告，以及德国转型国家农业经济研究所（IAMO）等国际组织的科学咨询委员等职务。在American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Land Economics, Food Policy, Land Use Policy, Journal of Rural Studies等期刊发表论文多篇。
点评人：周洁红，浙江大学中国农村发展研究院、浙江大学公共管理学院教授
主持人：金鑫，浙江大学中国农村发展研究院“百人计划”研究员
