

Food Crises: Predictive validation of a quantitative model of food prices - esalazar
http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodprices/update/

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pdx
So... what happened? It's 2014 now, and I haven't been paying close attention
to food prices around the world.

Did the model successfully predict them or not?

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yummyfajitas
The authors don't seem very confident in their results: _According to the new
study, the next food price peak will take place in about a year._

If I were confident that FB or TWTR or food prices would peak in about a year,
I'd just buy shares or futures now and sell it then, rather than just publish
some silly study.

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fsiefken
I don't understand the reason for your comment: 1\. are you suggesting that
prof. Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute would be more
interested in profiting from his findings and keeping them private then doing
science for the sake of science (in part paid by the military) or to influence
policy so mass starvation can be prevented? Not everyone does their thing for
the sake of money. Why would that be silly?

2\. Science works with confidence levels, the quote "about a year" is English
for that there is a margin of error in their predictive statistical model.
There was an all time peek august 2012, exactly half a year later. So the
model might be correct and of future use. Fortunately the prices have been
below that peek since.
[http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/](http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/)
I'd expect people posting on HN have some basic sense about science,
hypothesis, models and confidence.

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yummyfajitas
If the professor bought a bunch of futures (or raised a fund to do so), he
would be signalling to the markets that food production should be increased,
thereby preventing mass starvation. Generally speaking, people pay far more
attention to money than to academic papers.

As for your point (2), that's what I was saying - the author is not very
confident in his results.

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yequalsx
Assuming the professor's wealth is around average for professors it does not
seem likely that the professor's buying power would be sufficient to act as a
greater signal to 'the markets' than the paper written. The professor very
likely does not have enough money to signal to 'the markets' to increase food
production and thereby prevent mass starvation. This suggestion of yours seems
patently absurd.

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yummyfajitas
_or raise a fund_

In any case betting his personal wealth would signal far more confidence than
merely writing a paper. As dlthomas points out, he could do both.

