IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v234y2024ics0165176523004895.html

Does twitter economic uncertainty matter for wheat prices?

Author

Listed:
  • Alamah, Zein
  • Elgammal, Walid
  • Fakih, Ali

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between wheat prices, energy prices (crude oil and natural gas), and economic uncertainty, represented by the Twitter Economic Uncertainty Index (TEU). Despite existing literature emphasizing the significant impact of energy costs on agricultural commodity prices, this research uncovers no significant short-run relationship between the price shocks in the crude oil or natural gas markets and wheat prices. Similarly, fluctuations in the TEU USA do not reliably predict changes in wheat prices. This paper enriches the field by utilizing time series econometric analysis with a Structural Vector Auto-Regressive model with an exogenous variable (SVARX), incorporating four endogenous variables: wheat, crude oil, natural gas, and economic uncertainty from mid-2011 to mid-2022, and an exogenous dummy variable to account for an existing structural break. The findings present new insights into the complex interplay between these variables within a single framework and expand our understanding of the impact of economic uncertainty derived from Twitter data on agricultural commodity prices. Policymakers and researchers are advised to continue exploring these relationships over different periods, geographical contexts, and events to strengthen food security strategies by gaining a nuanced understanding of agricultural commodity prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Alamah, Zein & Elgammal, Walid & Fakih, Ali, 2024. "Does twitter economic uncertainty matter for wheat prices?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:234:y:2024:i:c:s0165176523004895
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176523004895
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111463?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Frijns, Bart & Tourani-Rad, Alireza, 2016. "Contemporaneous interactions among fuel, biofuel and agricultural commodities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-10.
    2. Bakas, Dimitrios & Triantafyllou, Athanasios, 2018. "The impact of uncertainty shocks on the volatility of commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 96-111.
    3. Ji, Qiang & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2018. "Risk spillover between energy and agricultural commodity markets: A dependence-switching CoVaR-copula model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 14-27.
    4. Shahnoushi, Naser & Sayed, Saghaian & Hezareh, Reza & Tirgari Seraji, Mohammad, "undated". "Investigation of Relationship Between World Food Prices and Energy Price: A Panel SUR Approach," 2017 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2017, Mobile, Alabama 252782, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    5. repec:aen:journl:2008v29-02-a03 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Mine K. Vücel & Shengyi Guo, 1994. "Fuel Taxes And Cointegration Of Energy Prices," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(3), pages 33-41, July.
    7. repec:aen:journl:2006v27-02-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sanyal, Prabuddha & Malczynski, Leonard A. & Kaplan, Paul, 2015. "Impact of Energy Price Variability on Global Fertilizer Price: Application of Alternative Volatility Models," Sustainable Agriculture Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 4(4).
    9. Ayhan KAPUSUZOGLU & Merve KARACAER ULUSOY, 2015. "The interactions between agricultural commodity and oil prices: an empirical analysis," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 61(9), pages 410-421.
    10. Shen, Yifan & Shi, Xunpeng & Zeng, Ting, 2017. "Global Uncertainty, Macroeconomic Activity and Commodity Price," MPRA Paper 90089, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Nov 2018.
    11. Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Rasoulinezhad, Ehsan & Yoshino, Naoyuki, 2019. "Energy and Food Security: Linkages through Price Volatility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 796-806.
    12. Ping-Yu Chen & Chia-Lin Chang & Chi-Chung Chen & Michael McAleer, 2012. "Modelling the Effects of Oil Prices on Global Fertilizer Prices and Volatility," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-37, December.
    13. Wongpiyabovorn, Oranuch, 2021. "Changes in the Relationship between Nitrogen Fertilizer and Natural Gas Prices in the U.S," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 312628, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    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. Zein Alamah & Ali Fakih, 2025. "Is the Price of Ether Driven by Demand or Pure Speculation?," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 66(1), pages 323-347, July.
    2. Ma, Yong & Li, Shuaibing & Zhou, Mingtao, 2025. "Twitter-based market uncertainty and global stock volatility predictability," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).

    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. Khalfaoui, Rabeh & Shahzad, Umer & Ghaemi Asl, Mahdi & Ben Jabeur, Sami, 2023. "Investigating the spillovers between energy, food, and agricultural commodity markets: New insights from the quantile coherency approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 63-80.
    2. Zhengliang Yang & Xiaoxue Du & Liang Lu & Hernan Tejeda, 2022. "Price and Volatility Transmissions among Natural Gas, Fertilizer, and Corn Markets: A Revisit," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Sun, Yunpeng & Gao, Pengpeng & Raza, Syed Ali & Shah, Nida & Sharif, Arshian, 2023. "The asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on the world food prices: Fresh evidence from quantile-on-quantile regression approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    4. Cheng, Natalie Fang Ling & Hasanov, Akram Shavkatovich & Poon, Wai Ching & Bouri, Elie, 2023. "The US-China trade war and the volatility linkages between energy and agricultural commodities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    5. Raza, Syed Ali & Guesmi, Khaled & Belaid, Fateh & Shah, Nida, 2022. "Time-frequency causality and connectedness between oil price shocks and the world food prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Monika Roman & Aleksandra Górecka & Joanna Domagała, 2020. "The Linkages between Crude Oil and Food Prices," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Cao, Yan & Cheng, Sheng, 2021. "Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on multi-scale asymmetric spillovers between food and oil prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Zhuo Chen & Bo Yan & Hanwen Kang, 2022. "Dynamic correlation between crude oil and agricultural futures markets," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1798-1849, August.
    9. Stewart, Shamar L. & Isengildina Massa, Olga, 2024. "Food & Oil Price Volatility Dynamics: Insights from a TVP-SVAR-DCC-MIDAS Model," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343936, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Khalfaoui, Rabeh & Baumöhl, Eduard & Sarwar, Suleman & Výrost, Tomáš, 2021. "Connectedness between energy and nonenergy commodity markets: Evidence from quantile coherency networks," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Miroslava Ivanova & Lilko Dospatliev, 2023. "Effects of Diesel Price on Changes in Agricultural Commodity Prices in Bulgaria," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-22, January.
    12. Clement Oteng & Omowumi Iledare & Joshua Sebu, 2024. "Vulnerability of the Agricultural Commodity Markets in Ghana to Global Oil Price Fluctuations: An Empirical Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    13. Ni, Guohua & Teng, Man & Chen, Zhenling & Wu, Yunsong & He, Wenjia & Su, Bin, 2024. "Exploring the impacts of major events on the global oil and food markets," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    14. Gaete, Michael & Herrera, Rodrigo, 2023. "Diversification benefits of commodities in portfolio allocation: A dynamic factor copula approach," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    15. Xuewei Zhou & Zisheng Ouyang & Rangan Gupta & Qiang Ji, 2026. "Time-varying multilayer networks analysis of frequency connectedness in commodity futures markets," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 1-41, February.
    16. Eissa, Mohamad Abdelaziz & Al Refai, Hisham, 2019. "Modelling the symmetric and asymmetric relationships between oil prices and those of corn, barley, and rapeseed oil," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    17. Duc Hong Vo & Tan Ngoc Vu & Anh The Vo & Michael McAleer, 2019. "Modeling the Relationship between Crude Oil and Agricultural Commodity Prices," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-41, April.
    18. Gormus, Alper & Salvino, Robert & Nazlioglu, Saban & Soytas, Ugur, 2025. "Energy commodities and U.S. housing: Long-run Price and volatility integration with comparative evidence from non-energy markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    19. Karel Janda & Ladislav Kristoufek, 2019. "The Relationship Between Fuel and Food Prices: Methods, Outcomes, and Lessons for Commodity Price Risk Management," CAMA Working Papers 2019-20, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    20. Yahya, Muhammad & Dutta, Anupam & Bouri, Elie & Wadström, Christoffer & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2022. "Dependence structure between the international crude oil market and the European markets of biodiesel and rapeseed oil," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 594-605.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q19 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Other
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q49 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - 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:eee:ecolet:v:234:y:2024:i:c:s0165176523004895. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.