The present value model relates an asset's price to the sum of its discounted expected future payoffs. I explore the limits of the model by testing its ability to explain the pricing of storable commodities. For commodities the payoff stream is the convenience yield that accrues from holding inventories, and it can be measured directly from spot and futures prices. Hence the model imposes restrictions on the joint dynamics of spot and futures prices, which I test for four commodities. I find close conformance to the model for heating oil, but not for copper or lumber, and especially not for gold. The pattern is the same for the serial dependence of excess returns, These results suggest that for three of the four commodities, prices at least temporarily deviate from fundamentals.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
4083.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 1993 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4083
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Deaton, A. & Laroque, G., 1989.
"On The Behavior Of Commodity Prices,"
Papers
145, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
Other versions:
Cutler, David M & Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1991.
"Speculative Dynamics,"
Review of Economic Studies,
Blackwell Publishing, vol. 58(3), pages 529-46, May.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
David M. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1990.
"Speculative Dynamics,"
NBER Working Papers
3242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Culter, D.M. & Poterba, J.M. & Summers, L.H., 1990.
"Speculative Dynamics,"
Working papers
544, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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