Cereal trade in developing countries : a stochastic equilibrium analysis of market liberalisation and institutional changes in Burkina Faso

This thesis deals with trade on cereal markets in semi-arid West Africa, and in particular with the distribution of cereals in space and time in Burkina Faso. A well functioning cereal market is a prerequisite for attaining food security, which is of great concern in many African countries. In Burkina Faso, food security is a problem for a large part of the population. Before discussing in the next section the objectives and research questions analysed in this thesis, I briefly discuss some problems of the cereal market in Burkina Faso first. Although the research concentrates on Burkina Faso, problems in many other developing countries are similar, so that the scope of this research is not restricted to the case of Burkina Faso only.