IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/13870.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The determinants of commodity prices

Author

Listed:
  • Reinhart, Carmen
  • Borensztein, Eduardo

Abstract

The "traditional structural approach" to the determination of real commodity prices has relied exclusively on demand factors as the fundamentals that explain the behavior of commodity prices. This framework, however, has been unable to explain the marked and sustained weakness in commodity prices during the 1980s and 1990s. This paper extends that framework in two important directions: First, it ncorporates commodity supply in the analysis, capturing the impact on prices of the sharp increase in commodity exports of developing countries during the debt crisis of the 1980s. Second, we take a broader view of "world" demand that extends beyond the industrial countries and includes output developments In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (FSU). The empirical results support these extensions, as both the fit of the model improves substantially and, more importantly, its ability to forecast increases markedly.

Suggested Citation

  • Reinhart, Carmen & Borensztein, Eduardo, 1994. "The determinants of commodity prices," MPRA Paper 13870, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:13870
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13870/1/MPRA_paper_13870.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart, 1991. "Fiscal Policy, the Real Exchange Rate, and Commodity Prices," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 38(3), pages 506-524, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    5. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    6. Pindyck, Robert S & Rotemberg, Julio J, 1990. "The Excess Co-movement of Commodity Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1173-1189, December.
    7. Rudiger Dornbusch, 1985. "Policy and Performance Links between LDC Debtors and Industrial Nations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 16(2), pages 303-368.
    8. Leamer, Edward E., 1985. "Vector autoregressions for causal inference?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 255-304, January.
    9. Graciela Kaminsky & Manmohan S. Kumar, 1990. "Efficiency in Commodity Futures Markets," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(3), pages 670-699, September.
    10. Carmen M. Reinhart, 1991. "Fiscal Policy, the Real Exchange Rate, and Commodity Prices," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 38(3), pages 506-524, September.
    11. Arrau, Patricio & De Gregorio, Jose & Reinhart, Carmen M. & Wickham, Peter, 1995. "The demand for money in developing countries: Assessing the role of financial innovation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 317-340, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Alogoskoufis, George & Varangis, Panos, 1992. "OECD fiscal policies and the relative prices of primary commodities," Policy Research Working Paper Series 955, The World Bank.
    14. Joshua Aizenman & Eduardo R. Borensztein, 1988. "Debt and Conditionality under Endogenous Terms of Trade Adjustment," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 35(4), pages 686-713, December.
    15. World Bank, 1994. "Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries 1994," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 32389, December.
    16. 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 773-784, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Eduardo Borensztein & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1994. "The Macroeconomic Determinants of Commodity Prices," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 41(2), pages 236-261, June.
    2. Ms. Hong Liang & Mr. John T. Cuddington, 2000. "Will the Emergence of the Euro Affect World Commodity Prices?," IMF Working Papers 2000/208, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Néstor Adrián le Clech, 2013. "Determinantes del precio internacional de la soja," Economic Analysis Working Papers (2002-2010). Atlantic Review of Economics (2011-2016), Colexio de Economistas de A Coruña, Spain and Fundación Una Galicia Moderna, vol. 2, pages 1-1, December.
    4. John Baffes & Cristina Savescu, 2014. "Monetary conditions and metal prices," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(7), pages 447-452, May.
    5. Luis Eduardo Arango & Fernando Arias & Luz Adriana Flórez, 2008. "Trends, Fluctuations, and Determinants of Commodity Prices," Borradores de Economia 521, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    6. Carmen M. Reinhart, 1991. "Fiscal Policy, the Real Exchange Rate, and Commodity Prices," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 38(3), pages 506-524, September.
    7. John Baffes & Damir Cosic, 2014. "Global Economic Prospects : Commodity Markets Outlook, January 2014," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 18996.
    8. Cuddington, John T. & Liang, Hong, "undated". "Will the Emergence of the Euro Affect World Commodity Prices?," WIDER Working Papers 295505, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. John Baffes & Tassos Haniotis, 2016. "What Explains Agricultural Price Movements?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 706-721, September.
    10. Dominique Yves Dupont & Mr. V. Hugo Juan-Ramon, 1996. "Real Exchange Rates and Commodity Prices," IMF Working Papers 1996/027, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Kausik Chaudhuri, 2001. "Long-run prices of primary commodities and oil prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 531-538.
    12. Carmen M. Reinhart, 1995. "Devaluation, Relative Prices, and International Trade: Evidence from Developing Countries," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(2), pages 290-312, June.
    13. Mei-Hsiu Chen & Kenneth W Clements & Grace Gao, 2013. "Three Facts About World Metal Prices," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 13-01, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    14. Hua, Ping, 1998. "On Primary Commodity Prices: The Impact of Macroeconomic/Monetary Shocks," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 767-790, December.
    15. Paul Cashin & Hong Liang & C. John McDermott, 2000. "How Persistent Are Shocks to World Commodity Prices?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 47(2), pages 1-2.
    16. Hildegart Ahumada & Magdalena Cornejo, 2015. "Explaining commodity prices by a cointegrated time series-cross section model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1667-1690, June.
    17. Simona Delle Chiaie & Laurent Ferrara & Domenico Giannone, 2022. "Common factors of commodity prices," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 461-476, April.
    18. René Lalonde & Zhenhua Zhu & Frédérick Demers, 2003. "Forecasting and Analyzing World Commodity Prices," Money Affairs, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 1-30, January-J.
    19. Chen, Mei-Hsiu, 2010. "Understanding world metals prices--Returns, volatility and diversification," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 127-140, September.
    20. Diego Bastourre & Jorge Carrera & Javier Ibarlucia, 2008. "Commodity Prices in Argentina. What Does Move the Wind?," Money Affairs, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 1-30, January-J.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    world demand US dollar commodity supply prices oil;

    JEL classification:

    • F37 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Finance Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • F39 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Other

    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:pra:mprapa:13870. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.