This article examines the empirical relationship between the returns on carbon futures - a new class of commodity assets traded since 2005 on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) - and changes in macroeconomic conditions. By using variables which possess forecast power for equity and commodity returns, we document that carbon futures returns may be weakly forecast on the basis of two variables from the stock and bond markets, i.e. equity dividend yields and the "junk bond" premium. Our results also suggest that the forecast abilities of two variables related to interest rates variation and economic trends on global commodity markets, respectively the U.S. Treasury bill yields and the excess return on the Reuters/CRB Index, are not robust on the carbon market. This latter result reinforces the belief that the EU ETS is currently operating as a very specific commodity market, with distinct fundamentals linked to allowance supply and power demand. The sensitivity of carbon futures to macroeconomic influences is carefully identified following a sub-sample decomposition before and after August 2007, which attempts to take into account the potential impact of the "credit crunch" crisis. Collectively, these results challenge the market observers' viewpoint that carbon futures prices are immediately correlated with changes in the macroeconomic environment, and rather suggest that the carbon market is only remotely connected to macroeconomic variables. The economic logic behind these results may be related to the fuel-switching behavior of power producers in influencing primarily carbon futures price changes.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 31 (2009) Issue (Month): 4 (July) Pages: 614-625 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? All full texts are decentralized with the publishers, none reside on this server, thus making it possible to offer this service for free to all parties.