Agriculture reform and food crisis in Syria: Impacts on poverty and inequality

The paper pursues a twofold objective. From a methodological viewpoint it shows how to carry out an impacts evaluation of exogenous shocks on poverty and inequality in a context characterised by out-of-equilibrium, poorly-adjusting markets, as it is the case in many developing countries, using a social accounting matrix framework. From an empirical viewpoint it provides an assessment of how the cereal price spikes of 2007–2008 and the global recession of 2008–2009 have impacted the welfare of Syrian households and how did they compound with the on-going agricultural sector liberalisation implemented by the Government of Syria since mid 1990s. This will contribute to shed some lights on the economic background behind the spreading of unrest across the country over the last couple of years or so.