IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecj/ac2003/118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trends and Persistence in Primary Commodity Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Kellard, Neil

    (University of Essex)

  • Mark E Wohar

Abstract

This paper applies new time-series procedures to examine the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis of a secular deterioration in relative primary commodity prices and the nature of their persistence. Employing a dataset of 24 relative commodity prices for the 1900-98 period, the pervasiveness of the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis is shown to be a function of a priori selected decision criteria, providing an explanation of conflicting findings in the recent literature. Moreover, much less persistence is found in the relative commodity prices than previously reported, since 23 out of the 24 commodities can be classified as trend-stationary. This implies there may well be more room for stabilization and price support mechanisms than previously advocated.

Suggested Citation

  • Kellard, Neil & Mark E Wohar, 2003. "Trends and Persistence in Primary Commodity Prices," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 118, Royal Economic Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2003:118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.org/res2003/Kellard.pdf
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prebisch, Raúl, 1950. "The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 29973, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    2. Pierre Perron & Serena Ng, 1996. "Useful Modifications to some Unit Root Tests with Dependent Errors and their Local Asymptotic Properties," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 435-463.
    3. Serena Ng & Pierre Perron, 2001. "LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1519-1554, November.
    4. D. Sapsford & P. Sarkar & H. W. Singer, 1992. "The prebisch‐singer terms of trade controversy revisited," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(3), pages 315-332, May.
    5. Sapsford, D, 1985. "The Statistical Debate on the Net Barter Terms of Trade between Primary Commodities and Manufactures: A Comment and Some Additional Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(379), pages 781-788, September.
    6. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1988. "Variable Trends in Economic Time Series," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 147-174, Summer.
    7. Perron, Pierre & Vogelsang, Timothy J., "undated". "Level Shifts and Purchasing Power Parity," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics levshift, Boston College Department of Economics.
    8. N. G. Shephard & A. C. Harvey, 1990. "On The Probability Of Estimating A Deterministic Component In The Local Level Model," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 339-347, July.
    9. Grilli, Enzo R & Yang, Maw Cheng, 1988. "Primary Commodity Prices, Manufactured Goods Prices, and the Terms of Trade of Developing Countries: What the Long Run Shows," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 2(1), pages 1-47, January.
    10. Christiano, Lawrence J, 1992. "Searching for a Break in GNP," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 237-250, July.
    11. Paul Newbold & Tony Rayner & Neil Kellard, 2000. "Long‐Run Drift, Co‐Movement and Persistence in Real Wheat and Maize Prices," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 106-121, January.
    12. Pierre Perron, 1994. "Trend, Unit Root and Structural Change in Macroeconomic Time Series," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: B. Bhaskara Rao (ed.), Cointegration, chapter 4, pages 113-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    14. Schwert, G William, 2002. "Tests for Unit Roots: A Monte Carlo Investigation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 5-17, January.
    15. Ardeni, Pier Giorgio & Wright, Brian, 1992. "The Prebisch-Singer Hypothesis: A Reappraisal Independent of Stationarity Hypotheses," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(413), pages 803-812, July.
    16. Tae‐Hwan Kim & Stephan Pfaffenzeller & Tony Rayner & Paul Newbold, 2003. "Testing for Linear Trend with Application to Relative Primary Commodity Prices," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 539-551, September.
    17. Bleaney, Michael F & Greenaway, David, 1993. "Long-Run Trends in the Relative Price of Primary Commodities and in the Terms of Trade of Developing Countries," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 349-363, July.
    18. Zivot, Eric & Andrews, Donald W K, 2002. "Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil-Price Shock, and the Unit-Root Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-44, January.
    19. Carmen M. Reinhart & Peter Wickham, 1994. "Commodity Prices: Cyclical Weakness or Secular Decline?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 41(2), pages 175-213, June.
    20. 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.
    21. Banerjee, Anindya & Lumsdaine, Robin L & Stock, James H, 1992. "Recursive and Sequential Tests of the Unit-Root and Trend-Break Hypotheses: Theory and International Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 271-287, July.
    22. Robin L. Lumsdaine & David H. Papell, 1997. "Multiple Trend Breaks And The Unit-Root Hypothesis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 212-218, May.
    23. Richard N. Cooper & Robert Z. Lawrence, 1975. "The 1972-75 Commodity Boom," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(3), pages 671-724.
    24. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    25. Joel Popkin, 1974. "Commodity Prices and the U.S. Price Level," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 5(1), pages 249-260.
    26. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-836, July.
    27. Cuddington, John T., 1992. "Long-run trends in 26 primary commodity prices : A disaggregated look at the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 207-227, October.
    28. 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 1485-1496, November.
    29. Schwert, G. William, 1987. "Effects of model specification on tests for unit roots in macroeconomic data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 73-103, July.
    30. W. Arthur Lewis, 1952. "World Production, Prices and Trade, 1870–1960," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 20(2), pages 105-138, May.
    31. Perron, Pierre & Vogelsang, Timothy J, 1992. "Nonstationarity and Level Shifts with an Application to Purchasing Power Parity," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 301-320, July.
    32. Perron, Pierre & Vogelsang, Timothy J, 1992. "Testing for a Unit Root in a Time Series with a Changing Mean: Corrections and Extensions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(4), pages 467-470, October.
    33. Bloch, Harry & Sapsford, David, 1997. "Some estimates of Prebisch and Singer effects on the terms of trade between primary producers and manufacturers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(11), pages 1873-1884, November.
    34. Cuddington, John T & Urzua, Carlos M, 1989. "Trends and Cycles in the Net Barter Terms of Trade: A New Approach," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(396), pages 426-442, June.
    35. Pantula, Sastry G, 1991. "Asymptotic Distributions of Unit-Root Tests When the Process Is Nearly Stationary," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(1), pages 63-71, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. DAUBANES Julien, 2009. "Taxation of Oil Products and GDP Dynamics of Oil-rich Countries," LERNA Working Papers 09.03.279, LERNA, University of Toulouse.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kellard, Neil & Wohar, Mark E., 2006. "On the prevalence of trends in primary commodity prices," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 146-167, February.
    2. Cuddington, John T. & Ludema, Rodney & Jayasuriya, Shamila A, 2002. "Prebisch-Singer Redux," Working Papers 15857, United States International Trade Commission, Office of Economics.
    3. Ghoshray, Atanu, 2011. "A reexamination of trends in primary commodity prices," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 242-251, July.
    4. Ghoshray, Atanu & Kejriwal, Mohitosh & Wohar, Mark E., 2011. "Breaking Trends and the Prebisch-Singer Hypothesis: A Further Investigation," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 120387, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. André Varella Mollick & João Ricardo Faria & Pedro H. Albuquerque & Miguel A. León-Ledesma, 2008. "Can globalisation stop the decline in commodities' terms of trade?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(5), pages 683-701, September.
    6. Winkelried, Diego, 2021. "Unit roots in real primary commodity prices? A meta-analysis of the Grilli and Yang data set," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    7. Joseph V. Balagtas & Matthew T. Holt, 2009. "The Commodity Terms of Trade, Unit Roots, and Nonlinear Alternatives: A Smooth Transition Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(1), pages 87-105.
    8. Bilge Erten, 2010. "Industrial Upgrading and Export Diversification: A Comparative Analysis of Economic Policies in Turkey and Malaysia," Working Papers id:2778, eSocialSciences.
    9. Surajit Deb, 2003. "Terms of Trade and Supply Response of Indian Agriculture: Analysis in Cointegration Framework," Working papers 115, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    10. Ana Iregui & Jesús Otero, 2013. "The long-run behaviour of the terms of trade between primary commodities and manufactures: a panel data approach," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 12(1), pages 35-56, April.
    11. David Harvey & Neil Kellard & Jakob Madsen & Mark Wohar, 2012. "Trends and Cycles in Real Commodity Prices: 1650-2010," CEH Discussion Papers 010, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    12. Nazlioglu, Saban, 2014. "Trends in international commodity prices: Panel unit root analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 441-451.
    13. Geronimi, Vincent & Taranco, Armand, 2018. "Revisiting the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis of a secular decline in the terms of trade of primary commodities (1900–2016). A dynamic regime approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 329-339.
    14. Niels Haldrup & Robinson Kruse & Timo Teräsvirta & Rasmus T. Varneskov, 2013. "Unit roots, non-linearities and structural breaks," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 4, pages 61-94, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Otero, Jesús, 2011. "The Long-Run Behaviour of the Terms of Trade between Primary Commodities and Manufactures," WIDER Working Paper Series 071, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Shouvik Chakraborty & Prabirjit Sarkar, 2020. "From The Classical Economists To Empiricists: A Review Of The Terms Of Trade Controversy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 1111-1133, December.
    17. Murat ASLAN & Saban NAZLIOGLU, 2018. "Do International Relative Commodity Prices Support the Prebisch-Singer Hypothesis? A Nonlinear Panel Unit Root Testing," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 76-92, December.
    18. Dimitrios Dadakas & Christos Karpetis & Athanasios Fassas & Erotokritos Varelas, 2016. "Sectoral Differences in the Choice of the Time Horizon during Estimation of the Unconditional Stock Beta," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin & Gokmenoglu, Korhan & Ekinci, Cagdas, 2013. "Persistence in crude oil spot and futures prices," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 29-37.
    20. Jürgen Wolters & Uwe Hassler, 2006. "Unit Root Testing," Springer Books, in: Olaf Hübler & Jachim Frohn (ed.), Modern Econometric Analysis, chapter 4, pages 41-56, Springer.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    primary commodities; unit root tests; structural breaks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2003:118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.