Climate Factors and Maize Price Volatility in Developing Countries: Evidence from Benin

Changes in climate conditions are expected to significantly alter food production patterns and increase food price volatility, leading to challenges for food and nutrition security. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which climate factors contribute to the volatility of maize price in Benin, using monthly data from 7 markets. To this end, an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean (ARCH-M) model is estimated. Mean and variance equations of monthly maize price are specified as functions of temperature, rainfall of the growing season and a set of control variables including a policy variable and the international price of maize with an ARCH(1) term in the variance equation. The findings from the mean equation suggest that rainfall has a negative effect on maize prices. Moreover, the estimation results from the variance equation indicate that rainfall and temperature are negatively associated with price volatility. Therefore, the findings indicate that climate change will affect maize price volatility.