This research work follows the recent trend in most African countries in introducing (or strengthening) price support programs for selected cereals. Under this background, this study examines the impact of a potential implementation of a minimum support price MSP) policy on cereals in Ethiopia. To that end, positive and negative productivity shocks were considered under alternative producer and consumer pricing policies backed-up by public storage services. The quantitative analysis show that the effectiveness of price policies and government intervention in the commodity market depends on the nature of the productivity changes. Producer price floors are effective only when there are productivity gains which would ultimately decrease producer prices, suggesting the productivity enhancing role of this policy option. Also, producer price support works against consumers as prices of target commodities could not fall anymore beyond the level dictated by the support program. On the other hand, price ceiling on commodities is effective only when there are productivity losses since consumer prices tend to increase. Consumer price support policies help urban households since they slightly dampen increases in consumer prices and declines in incomes to these households. However, rural households lose more welfare mainly due to further losses in incomes as the control in consumer prices limit the increase in producer prices for cereals. The price policy of keeping producers prices of cereals within a 5% floor does not effectively affect the economy since producer prices tend to increase significantly if productivity is falling by the simulated levels due to exogenous shocks, such as extreme weather conditions.

这项研究工作遵循了最近在大多数非洲国家引入(或加强)特定谷物价格支持项目的趋势。在此背景下，本研究考察了埃塞俄比亚可能实施的最低支持价格(MSP)政策对谷物的影响。为此目的，在公共储存服务支持的替代生产者和消费者定价政策下考虑了正面和负面的生产力冲击。定量分析表明，价格政策和政府干预商品市场的有效性取决于生产力变化的性质。只有当生产率的提高最终会降低生产者价格时，生产者价格下限才会有效，这表明了这一政策选项对提高生产率的作用。此外，生产者价格支持对消费者不利，因为目标商品的价格不能再下跌超过支持计划所规定的水平。另一方面，商品价格上限只有在生产率下降时才有效，因为消费者价格往往会上升。居民消费价格支持政策对城市家庭有所帮助，因为它们略微抑制了居民消费价格的上涨和收入的下降。然而，由于对消费价格的控制限制了粮食生产者价格的上涨，农村家庭失去了更多的福利，这主要是由于收入的进一步损失。将谷物生产者价格控制在5%以内的价格政策并不能有效地影响经济，因为如果生产力由于极端天气条件等外源性冲击而下降到模拟的水平，生产者价格往往会大幅上升。