Summary

In the dawn of increasing economic insecurity and instability, high food price inflation, increasing unemployment rates and chaotic, dangerous crises, the globe has to question, even remind itself, of the priorities that define its well-being. In response to the necessity to establish new rules for our changing world, my thesis takes issue on two major steps that would provide a reasonable path for sustainable development: short run price control and social insurance policies targeting particularly the poor, and long run reappreciation of the central role of agriculture in our economies, both on the perspective of “thinking globally, but acting domestically”.