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The Financialization of Food?

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  • Valentina G. Bruno
  • Bahattin Büyükşahin
  • Michel A. Robe

Abstract

Commodity-equity return co-movements rose dramatically during the Great Recession. This development took place following what has been dubbed the “financialization” of commodity markets. We first document changes since 1995 in the relative importance of financial institutions’ activity in agricultural futures markets. We then use a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model to ascertain the role of that activity in explaining correlations between weekly grain, livestock, and equity returns from 1995–2015. We provide robust evidence that, accounting for shocks that are idiosyncratic to agricultural markets, world business cycle shocks have a substantial and long-lasting impact on the latter’s co-movements with financial markets. In contrast, changes in the intensity of financial speculation have an impact on cross-market return linkages that is shorter-lived and not statistically significant in all model specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Valentina G. Bruno & Bahattin Büyükşahin & Michel A. Robe, 2017. "The Financialization of Food?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(1), pages 243-264.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:99:y:2017:i:1:p:243-264.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aaw059
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    Cited by:

    1. Kilian, Lutz, 2019. "Measuring global real economic activity: Do recent critiques hold up to scrutiny?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 106-110.
    2. Algieri, Bernardina & Leccadito, Arturo, 2019. "Price volatility and speculative activities in futures commodity markets: A combination of combinations of p-values test," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 40-54.
    3. Mohammad Isleimeyyeh, 2020. "The role of financial investors in determining the commodity futures risk premium," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(9), pages 1375-1397, September.
    4. Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2018. "Modeling fluctuations in the global demand for commodities," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 54-78.
    5. Esposti, Roberto, 2021. "On the long-term common movement of resource and commodity prices.A methodological proposal," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Bohl Martin T., 2016. "Treiben Indexfonds Agrarrohstoffpreise? Nein!," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 155-171, July.
    7. Liu, Lu & Zhang, Xiang, 2019. "Financialization and commodity excess spillovers," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 195-216.
    8. Bonato, Matteo, 2019. "Realized correlations, betas and volatility spillover in the agricultural commodity market: What has changed?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 184-202.
    9. Mohammad Isleimeyyeh & Amine Ben Amar & Stéphane Goutte, 2021. "Commodity markets dynamics: What do crosscommodities over different nearest-to-maturities tell us?," Working Papers halshs-03211699, HAL.
    10. Michael Hachula & Malte Rieth, 2020. "Estimating the Impact of Financial Investments on Agricultural Futures Prices using Changes in Volatility," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 759-785, May.
    11. Esposti, Roberto, 2017. "What Makes Commodity Prices Move Together? An Answer From A Dynamic Factor Model," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 260889, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financialization; fundamentals; grains; livestock; equities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

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