Sen and Stiglitz on the world food crisis

Two different sets of policy interventions for developing countries facing a food crisis and soaring inflation..

Stiglitz provides the DON'Ts - don't follow inflation targeting textbooks: by the time you push the breaks hard enough to actually curtail price rises (à coup de increasing interest rates) you'd have caused an economic slowdown and rising unemployment that is almost guaranteed to offset whatever gains you obtained.

Sen goes for the DOs. Highlighting the widening income gap between the poor (which, in terms of immediate terms, can be relatively more important than the 'poor' vs. 'rich' gap) and warns against inappropriate policy that doesn't take this assymetric growth into consideration. (now that I think of it, he also gives us DON'Ts. What's wrong with economists?)

"Domestic economic reforms are badly needed in many slow-growth countries, but there is also a big need for more global cooperation and assistance. The first task is to understand the nature of the problem."

Much of the same recipes, in fact - we're just in a more pressing phase.