posterD4D_Market_Insight.pdf

Poster submitted to the D4D challenge in the Agriculture Categorie.

Staple prices, the main indicator of food access and a key determinant of the revenues of the poorest, result from the

equilibrium between supply and demand at the local and regional levels. This work simulates the millet prices

formation process in Senegal in a spatially explicit model that integrates the markets failures emerging from

transportation costs and information asymmetries. The findings suggest that, thanks to the recent development of the mobile phone network in the country, information

asymmetries are responsible for price differentials in only the few areas where the mobile phone coverage has not yet

reached its full potential, while transportation costs remain an important burden for food security.