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Some pitfalls in testing the law of one price in commodity markets

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  • Pippenger, John
  • Phillips, Llad

Abstract

Several articles find no support for the LOP in commodity markets. A few articles find some support. Rejecting the LOP would strike at the heart of economic theory. Rejection would suggest that firms do not maximize wealth and households do not maximize utility. Our objective is to show how four common pitfalls can cause tests of the LOP to fail when in fact the LOP holds. All tests that fail to support the LOP fall in to at least two pitfalls. All of these pitfalls are the result of ignoring important practical implications of arbitrage.

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  • Pippenger, John & Phillips, Llad, 2008. "Some pitfalls in testing the law of one price in commodity markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 915-925, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:27:y:2008:i:6:p:915-925
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    3. Pippenger, John, 2022. "The Law Of One Price, Borders And Purchasing Power Parity," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt5b17d1dr, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    4. Mario J. Crucini & Gregor W. Smith, 2016. "Distance And Time Effects In Swedish Commodity Prices, 1732-1914," Working Paper 1357, Economics Department, Queen's University.
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    6. Mario J. Crucini & Gregor W. Smith, 2014. "Geographic Barriers to Commodity Price Integration: Evidence from US Cities and Swedish Towns, 1732 - 1860," CAMA Working Papers 2014-75, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
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    8. Pippenger, John, 2018. "Forward Bias, Uncovered Interest Parity And Related Puzzles," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt1778z416, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
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    10. Hyeongwoo Kim & Jintae Kim, 2016. "Price Adjustment to the Exchange Rate Shock in World Commodity Markets," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2016-01, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    11. Andrew M. Jones & Roberto Zanola, 2015. "Does the law of one price hold in non-standard investment markets? Why selling picasso in New York is differents," ACEI Working Paper Series AWP-04-2015, Association for Cultural Economics International, revised May 2015.
    12. Hyeongwoo Kim & Jintae Kim, 2015. "The Heterogeneous Responses of the World Commodity Prices to Exchange Rate Shocks," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2015-18, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
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    14. Pippenger, John, 2018. "Forward Bias, Uncovered Interest Parity and Related Puzzles," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt2cm6p186, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    15. Pippenger, John, 2015. "Arbitrage and the Law of One Price: Setting the Record Straight," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt27t4q265, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    16. Steinwender, Claudia, 2013. "Information Frictions and the Law of One Price: “When the States and the Kingdom became United”," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1314, CEPREMAP.
    17. Burridge, Peter & Iacone, Fabrizio & Lazarová, Štěpána, 2015. "Spatial effects in a common trend model of US city-level CPI," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 87-98.
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    19. Pippenger, John, 2017. "Forward Bias, The Failure Of Uncovered Interest Parity And Related Puzzles," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt2ff194s2, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    20. Claudia Steinwender, 2018. "Real Effects of Information Frictions: When the States and the Kingdom Became United," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(3), pages 657-696, March.
    21. Zhao, Xin & Calvin, Katherine V. & Wise, Marshall A. & Iyer, Gokul, 2021. "The role of global agricultural market integration in multiregional economic modeling: Using hindcast experiments to validate an Armington model," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-17.
    22. Harrison, James M., 2023. "Exploring 200 years of U.S. commodity market integration: A structural time series model approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    23. Ivan Diaz‐Rainey & Mathias Siems & John K. Ashton, 2011. "The financial regulation of energy and environmental markets," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 355-369, November.

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