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Determinants of Agricultural and Mineral Commodity Prices

In: Inflation in an Era of Relative Price Shocks

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Author Info

  • Jeffrey A Frankel

    (John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)

  • Andrew K Rose

    (University of California, Berkeley)

Abstract

Prices of most agricultural and mineral commodities rose strongly in the past decade, peaking sharply in 2008. Popular explanations included strong global growth (especially from China and India), easy monetary policy (as reflected in low real interest rates or expected inflation), a speculative bubble (resulting from bandwagon expectations) and risk (possibly resulting from geopolitical uncertainties). Motivated in part by this episode, this paper presents a theory that allows a role for macroeconomic determinants of real commodity prices, along the lines of the "overshooting" model: the resulting model includes global GDP and the real interest rate as macroeconomic factors. Our model also includes microeconomic determinants; we include inventory levels, measures of uncertainty, and the spot-forward spread. We estimate the equation in a variety of different ways, for eleven individual commodities. Although two macroeconomic fundamentals--global output and inflation--both have positive effects on real commodity prices, the fundamentals that seem to have the most consistent and strongest effects are microeconomic variables: volatility, inventories, and the spot-forward spread. There is also some evidence of a bandwagon effect.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

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This chapter was published in: Renée Fry & Callum Jones & Christopher Kent (ed.) Inflation in an Era of Relative Price Shocks, Reserve Bank of Australia, pages , 2010.

This item is provided by Reserve Bank of Australia in its series RBA Annual Conference Volume with number acv2009-02.

Handle: RePEc:rba:rbaacv:acv2009-02

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Related research

Keywords: commodity prices; economic growth; bandwagon expectations; risk;

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References

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  1. Ye, Michael & Zyren, John & Shore, Joanne, 2005. "A monthly crude oil spot price forecasting model using relative inventories," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 491-501.
  2. Moosa, Imad A. & Al-Loughani, Nabeel E., 1994. "Unbiasedness and time varying risk premia in the crude oil futures market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 99-105, April.
  3. Froot, Kenneth A. & Frankel, Jeffrey A., 1988. "Forward Discount Bias: Is It an Exchange Risk Premium?," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt5w65g4zg, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
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  12. Bopp, Anthony E. & Lady, George M., 1991. "A comparison of petroleum futures versus spot prices as predictors of prices in the future," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 274-282, October.
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  17. Brenner, Robin J. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1995. "Arbitrage, Cointegration, and Testing the Unbiasedness Hypothesis in Financial Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(01), pages 23-42, March.
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  20. Phillips, Llad & Pippenger, John, 2005. "Some Pitfalls in Testing the Law of One Price in Commodity Markets," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt92b16177, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
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Cited by:
  1. Alessio Anzuini & Marco J. Lombardi & Patrizio Pagano, 2010. "The impact of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices," Working Paper Series 1232, European Central Bank.
  2. Claudio Morana, 2012. "Oil Price Dynamics, Macro-Finance Interactions and the Role of Financial Speculation," Working Papers 2012.07, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

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