Yes, that is why in food surplus nations, where the local poor primarily eat domestically produced food, it seems highly unlikely that redistribution would do anything other than improve the Current Accounts balance, since the propensity to import of the wealth is clearly greater than the propensity to import of the poor ...

... while with food deficit countries like Egypt, its not so cut and dried, and even if the balance is in the positive, the impact will still be substantially muted by the netting out of the increase food consumption of the poor.

You'd at the very least want to accompany it with programs to increase in domestic production of foods that are aspirational consumption items by the poor.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.