Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Eradicating food insecurity is necessary for achieving global health goals. Trade liberalisation may reduce food insecurity, but the evidence is unclear, as previous analyses used imprecise food insecurity measures and did not explore distributional differences. In this paper, we address these gaps by using a unique global dataset to assess the association between trade liberalisation and individual food insecurity across individual- and country-income groups. We estimated multiple econometric models using a combination of Food and Agricultural Organization data from 460,102 persons in 132 countries, 2014-2017, and country-level trade liberalisation and covariate indicators. Liberal trade policy was not significantly associated with moderate or severe food insecurity after adjusting for covariates. However, in high-income countries, a unit increase in the trade liberalisation index (more liberal trade policy) was associated with a 0·07 % reduction (95% CI: -0·10 % to -0·04%) in the predicted probability of reporting moderate or severe food insecurity for individuals with household incomes of more than $25,430 per person per year. In contrast, a unit increase in the trade liberalisation index was associated with a 0·35% increase (95% CI: 0·06% to 0·6%) in the predicted probability of reporting moderate or severe food insecurity among individuals living in households in the lowest income decile (<$450 per person per year) in low-income countries. Our results highlight substantial variation in the relationship between trade liberalisation and food insecurity. Further trade liberalisation may exacerbate food insecurity among poor households in low-income countries unless policymakers implement complementary measures that offset these risks.