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Abstract
The paper examines the relationship between the world market and domestic
market prices of rice for Bangladesh in the regime of agricultural trade liberalization. The long
run price relationship information is an important piece of information for the policy makers in
formulating domestic polices and negotiating trade policies at the international level. The
monthly data used for this study are taken from different sources, the Food outlook, FAO and
Global Information and Early Warning System, FAO and the Bangladesh Bank for the period
June 1998 to July 2007. Both Engle-Granger bi-variate and Johansen multivariate cointegration
tests were used for the results sensitivity. We sequentially proceed to estimate the standard
error correction model. The results showed that there is a long run equilibrium relationship
between the world and the domestic prices and the relationship is uni-directional, meaning
that, the domestic prices adjust to the world prices but not vice-versa. So the policy to ensure
food security (via food price stability and price risk management) should be carefully designed
as the movement of the world market price is higher and distorted and many consumers
depend on the markets for their food, especially in the case of Bangladesh.