World Agricultural Production Loss and Its Impacts on Korean Economy

In recent years production losses in major crop producing countries are occurring very often due to the increased instability of weather conditions connected to global climate change. This study identifies the years and regions that recorded abnormally low levels of crop production using a historical time series data set. It is shown that occurrence of the events is increasing all over the world. Korea is heavily dependent on imported crops and is a major importer of world crops. Our study analyzes the impacts of the anticipated sharp increase in world crop prices in 2012/13 year on the Korean economy using a modified version of PEP CGE model. It is shown that the GDP loss that will be caused by the external price shock is larger than that caused by the historically recorded domestic production losses. Moreover, we find that prices of the commodities heavily consumed by lower income classes are increasing more, and hence, the event is likely to be a regressive one.