Total trade, cereals trade and undernourishment: new empirical evidence for developing countries

While trade policies are considered strategic to shape national food systems and promote food security, the ultimate impact of trade openness on hunger is still highly debated. Using a sample of 81 developing over the period 2001–2016 and principally focusing on the prevalence of undernourishment, this study provides new empirical evidence. Firstly, it estimates the impact of total trade differentiating the effects that pass through changes in real per capita income—i.e. on the economic access to food—from the residual effects that it directly has on the other dimensions of food security. Subsequently, it concentrates on cereals trade, that usually is the most affected by trade restrictions and the most correlated to undernourishment. Finally, it explores the different effects of cereals trade in terms of imports and exports. Three main conclusions emerge: (a) trade openness contributes to lower the prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries and most of this effect is not income-mediated but, rather, passes through the impacts that it directly has on the other dimensions of food security; (b) such impacts are mostly driven by the trade openness of the cereals sector where (c) its import component turns out to play the main role.