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The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability

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Author Info
Paul Cashin (International Monetary Fund)
C. John McCDermott (International Monetary Fund)

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Abstract

Using the longest dataset publicly available (The Economist's index of industrial commodity prices), we analyze the behavior of real commodity prices over the period 1862-1999 and have two main findings. First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long-run trend decline in commodity prices. Second, there is evidence of a ratcheting up in the variability of price movements. The amplitude of price movements increased in the early 1900s, while the frequency of large price movements increased after the collapse of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s. Although there is a downward trend in real commodity prices, this is of little practical policy relevance, since it is smalll and completely dominated by the variability of prices. Copyright 2002, International Monetary Fund

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Palgrave Macmillan Journals in its journal IMF Staff Papers.

Volume (Year): 49 (2002)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 2
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Handle: RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:49:y:2002:i:2:p:2

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices

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  1. Powell, Andrew, 1991. "Commodity and Developing Country Terms of Trade: What Does the Long Run Show?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(409), pages 1485-96, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Watson, Mark W, 1994. "Business-Cycle Durations and Postwar Stabilization of the U.S. Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 24-46, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1990. "Have postwar economic fluctuations been stabilized?," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 33, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Gilbert, Christopher L, 1989. "The Impact of Exchange Rates and Developing Country Debt on Commodity Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 773-84, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Lutz, Matthias G, 1999. "A General Test of the Prebisch-Singer Hypothesis," Review of Development Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 44-57, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Reinhart, Carmen & Wickham, Peter, 1994. "Commodity Prices: Cyclical Weakness or Secular Decline?," MPRA Paper 8173, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Perron, Pierre, 1990. "Testing for a Unit Root in a Time Series with a Changing Mean," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(2), pages 153-62, April.
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  8. Paul Cashin & C John McDermott & Alasdair Scott, 1999. "Booms and slumps in world commodity prices," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G99/8, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
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  9. JAVIER LEÓN & RAIMUNDO SOTO, 1997. "Structural Breaks And Long-Run Trends In Commodity Prices," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(3), pages 347-366.
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  10. Alan M. Taylor, 2000. "A Century of Purchasing-Power Parity," NBER Working Papers 8012, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Mussa, Michael, 1986. "Nominal exchange rate regimes and the behavior of real exchange rates: Evidence and implications," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 117-214, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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