This book argues that the viability of many observed market and non-market interventions in agricultural products worldwide depends considerably on the underlying behaviour of the relevant commodity markets. Many of these policies have had distortive impacts, resulting in much discussion and controversy in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of trade negotiations. Despite the long history of studies of commodity market behaviour, a number of issues remain unresolved. The authors review a wide range of these issues and provide a survey of current methodological and empirical research to increase our understanding of the nature of commodity markets. Price behaviour and the reliability of different prediction methods are examined and the particular implications for commodity dependent developing countries are also highlighted. This state-of-the-art survey of agricultural commodity market behaviour will prove to be of immense interest to researchers, students and academics in the fields of agricultural market analysis, development studies and economics. The book will also strongly appeal to policymakers in both agricultural trading countries and international agencies and to private commodity market analysts.

This third volume of the "Excavation of the Abri Pataud" rock shelter in southern France focuses on the occupation that began about 27,000 years ago and compares the materials with artifacts from more than 50 sites in Italy, Spain, and France.

The potentially adverse effect of import surges on domestic markets and the agricultural sector, particularly in developing countries, have received enough attention to prompt the concepts of safeguards to protect against any "injurious" import surge. This book has two objectives. The first is to examine the theoretical and legal frameworks of an import surge, based on reviews of the definition and identification of an import surge, and its potential and likely effects. The second is to synthesize the findings of FAO country case studies, including implications for ways to deal with import surges, and especially to provide informed guidance to policy-makers to respond to the surge's consequences.