Capturing the Margins: World Market Prices and Cotton Farmer Incomes in West Africa

World cotton prices soared to record levels in March 2011, reaching $2.20 a pound in contrast to 40-80¢/pound between 2000 and 2010. The price spike serves as a natural experiment that offers insights into the relationship between world cotton prices and producer prices in West Africa. A comparative study of Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire shows that national and regional level processes such as price setting mechanisms, inequalities in knowledge and power, and the oligopsonistic structure of West Africa's cotton economies exert a strong influence on the share of world market prices that producers ultimately receive.