Rising food prices are a humanitarian crisis.
The collapse in the relative price of food has been one of the great boons of the past generation. It meant that even fairly profound poverty didn’t have to mean malnutrition: everyone above the $2-a-day level could afford to feed their kids.
Now, thanks in part to the idiocy of ethanol, food prices are soaring. If I were running for office, I might want to talk about that, even at the risk of losing some of the farm vote.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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