IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/faoaes/288981.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing for bubbles in agricultural commodity markets

Author

Listed:
  • Areal, Francisco J.
  • Balcombe, Kelvin G.
  • Rapsomanikis, George

Abstract

Food price volatility spells have fuelled the debate about the reliability of world markets as a source of food. At the heart of this debate lies the question of whether food price spikes are generated by the forces of demand and supply, or by speculation. We test for 'bubble' behaviour ' movements in the prices that cannot be explained by market fundamentals ' by applying the generalized version of the supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller to several food price indices and 28 agricultural commodity prices. Our findings suggest that few food commodities exhibited bubble behaviour during the 2008 food price episode, with the price surges of 2010 and 2011 being due to market fundamentals. These spells of explosive behaviour are, in general, short-lived. Other commodities, which are also traded in futures markets, appear to respond only to the forces of supply and demand. Market conditions, such as stagnant productivity growth and low carry-over stocks, tend to shape the effect of speculation on prices. In some markets, trade policies, such as export bans, also appear to be crucial in generating bubble behaviour in prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Areal, Francisco J. & Balcombe, Kelvin G. & Rapsomanikis, George, 2014. "Testing for bubbles in agricultural commodity markets," ESA Working Papers 288981, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:faoaes:288981
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.288981
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/288981/files/a-i3869e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.288981?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    2. 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.
    3. Tirole, Jean, 1982. "On the Possibility of Speculation under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1163-1181, September.
    4. Larson, Donald F. & Plessmann, Frank, 2002. "Do farmers chooseto be inefficient? evidence from Bicol, Philippines," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2787, The World Bank.
    5. Beddow, Jason M. & Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M., 2009. "The Shifting Global Patterns of Agricultural Productivity," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 24(4), pages 1-10.
    6. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    7. Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R. & Merrin, Robert P., 2009. "Devil or Angel? The Role of Speculation in the Recent Commodity Price Boom (and Bust)," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 377-391, August.
    8. Adämmer, Philipp & Bohl, Martin T., 2015. "Speculative bubbles in agricultural prices," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 67-76.
    9. Diba, Behzad T & Grossman, Herschel I, 1988. "The Theory of Rational Bubbles in Stock Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 746-754, September.
    10. Philip Abbott, 2014. "Biofuels, Binding Constraints, and Agricultural Commodity Price Volatility," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Food Price Volatility, pages 91-131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. von Braun, Joachim & Torero, Maximo, 2009. "Implementing physical and virtual food reserves to protect the poor and prevent market failure:," Policy briefs 10, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Grilli, Enzo R & Yang, Maw Cheng, 1988. "Primary Commodity Prices, Manufactured Goods Prices, and the Terms of Trade of Developing Countries: What the Long Run Shows," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 2(1), pages 1-47, January.
    13. Cashin, Paul & McDermott, C. John & Scott, Alasdair, 2002. "Booms and slumps in world commodity prices," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 277-296, October.
    14. Peter C. B. Phillips & Jun Yu, 2011. "Dating the timeline of financial bubbles during the subprime crisis," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(3), pages 455-491, November.
    15. Kurosaki, Takashi & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2002. "Insurance market efficiency and crop choices in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 419-453, April.
    16. Etienne, Xiaoli L. & Irwin, Scott H. & Garcia, Philip, 2014. "Bubbles in food commodity markets: Four decades of evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 129-155.
    17. Nishant Dass & Massimo Massa & Rajdeep Patgiri, 2008. "Mutual Funds and Bubbles: The Surprising Role of Contractual Incentives," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 51-99, January.
    18. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin, 2010. "A speculative bubble in commodity futures prices? Cross‐sectional evidence," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(1), pages 25-32, January.
    19. Chris Brooks & Apostolos Katsaris, 2005. "A Three-Regime Model of Speculative Behaviour: Modelling the Evolution of the S&P 500 Composite Index," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 767-797, July.
    20. Phillips, Peter C.B. & Magdalinos, Tassos, 2007. "Limit theory for moderate deviations from a unit root," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 115-130, January.
    21. 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.
    22. Froot, Kenneth A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1991. "Intrinsic Bubbles: The Case of Stock Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1189-1214, December.
    23. Xiaoliang Liu & Guenther Filler & Martin Odening, 2013. "Testing for speculative bubbles in agricultural commodity prices: a regime switching approach," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 73(1), pages 179-200, May.
    24. Balcombe, Kelvin, 2009. "The Nature and Determinants of Volatility in Agricultural Prices," MPRA Paper 24819, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    25. Madhu Khanna & Jürgen Scheffran & David Zilberman (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of Bioenergy Economics and Policy," Natural Resource Management and Policy, Springer, number 978-1-4419-0369-3, December.
    26. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2012. "Speculative Bubbles and Financial Crises," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 184-221, July.
    27. Dwight R. Sanders & Scott H. Irwin, 2011. "New Evidence on the Impact of Index Funds in U.S. Grain Futures Markets," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 59(4), pages 519-532, December.
    28. Larson, Donald F. & Plessmann, Frank, 2009. "Do farmers choose to be inefficient? Evidence from Bicol," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 24-32, September.
    29. Evans, George W, 1991. "Pitfalls in Testing for Explosive Bubbles in Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 922-930, September.
    30. Jean-Paul Chavas & David Hummels & Brian D. Wright, 2014. "The Economics of Food Price Volatility," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number chav12-1, March.
    31. Kelvin Balcombe & George Rapsomanikis, 2008. "Bayesian Estimation and Selection of Nonlinear Vector Error Correction Models: The Case of the Sugar-Ethanol-Oil Nexus in Brazil," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(3), pages 658-668.
    32. Gustafson, Robert L., 1958. "Carryover levels for grains: A method for determining amounts that are optimal under specified conditions," Technical Bulletins 157231, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    33. Luciano Gutierrez, 2013. "Speculative bubbles in agricultural commodity markets-super- †," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 40(2), pages 217-238, March.
    34. Hernandez, Manuel & Torero, Maximo, 2010. "Examining the dynamic relationship between spot and future prices of agricultural commodities," IFPRI discussion papers 988, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    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. Etienne, Xiaoli L., 2015. "Financialization of Agricultural Commodity Markets: Do Financial Data Help to Forecast Agricultural Prices?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205124, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Jeanne Diesteldorf & Sarah Meyer & Jan Voelzke, 2016. "New evidence for explosive behavior of commodity prices," CQE Working Papers 5016, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    3. Rosa, Franco & Vasciaveo, Michela & Weaver, Robert D., 2014. "Agricultural and oil commodities: price transmission and market integration between US and Italy," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 3(2), pages 1-25, August.
    4. Fantazzini, Dean, 2016. "The oil price crash in 2014/15: Was there a (negative) financial bubble?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 383-396.
    5. Binge, Laurie H. & Boshoff, Willem H., 2021. "Measuring alternative asset prices in an emerging market: The case of the South African art market," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    6. Fatima, Hira & Ahmed, Mumtaz, 2019. "Testing for Exuberance Behavior in Agricultural Commodities of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 95304, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Kräussl, Roman & Lehnert, Thorsten & Martelin, Nicolas, 2016. "Is there a bubble in the art market?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 99-109.
    8. Itamar Caspi & Nico Katzke & Rangan Gupta, 2014. "Date stamping historical oil price bubbles: 1876 - 2014," Working Papers 20/2014, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    9. Caramugan, Karlo Martin & Bayacag, Purisima, 2016. "Price Bubble in Selected ASEAN Agricultural Exports: An Application of the Generalized Supremum Augmented Dickey Fuller," MPRA Paper 74807, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Butt, Muhammad Danial & Ahmed, Mumtaz, 2019. "Testing for Multiple Bubbles in Inflation for Pakistan," MPRA Paper 96847, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kübra Akyol Özcan, 2023. "Food Price Bubbles: Food Price Indices of Turkey, the FAO, the OECD, and the IMF," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-21, June.
    12. Koy, Ayben, 2018. "Testing Multi Bubbles for Commodity Derivative Markets: A Study on MCX," Business and Economics Research Journal, Uludag University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 9(2), pages 291-299, April.
    13. Caspi, Itamar & Katzke, Nico & Gupta, Rangan, 2018. "Date stamping historical periods of oil price explosivity: 1876–2014," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 582-587.
    14. Laurie Binge & Willem H Boshoff, 2016. "Modelling South African Art Prices: An analysis of post-2000 price behaviour," Working Papers 18/2016, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    15. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-586 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Aktham Maghyereh & Hussein Abdoh, 2022. "Can news-based economic sentiment predict bubbles in precious metal markets?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-29, December.
    17. El Montasser, Ghassen & Malek Belhoula, Mohamed & Charfeddine, Lanouar, 2023. "Co-explosivity versus leading effects: Evidence from crude oil and agricultural commodities," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Butt, Muhammad Danial & Ahmed, Mumtaz, 2019. "Testing for Multiple Bubbles in Inflation for Pakistan," MPRA Paper 96705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Irwin, Scott H., 2020. "Trilogy for troubleshooting convergence: Manipulation, structural imbalance, and storage rates," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    20. Moreno-Pérez, Olga M. & Marcossi, Gisele P.C. & Ortiz-Miranda, Dionisio, 2017. "Taking stock of the evolution of the biodiesel industry in Brazil: Business concentration and structural traits," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 525-533.

    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. Luna Méndez, Nexeai & Jaramillo Villanueva, José Luis & Ramírez Juárez, Javier, 2016. "Factores explicativos de la disposición a pagar por atributos culturales en nuez de Castilla," Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales, Spanish Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 16(01), June.
    2. Haase, Marco & Seiler Zimmermann, Yvonne & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2016. "The impact of speculation on commodity futures markets – A review of the findings of 100 empirical studies," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15.
    3. Tolhurst, Tor N., 2018. "A Model-Free Bubble Detection Method: Application to the World Market for Superstar Wines," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274387, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Jian Li & Jean-Paul Chavas & Xiaoli L. Etienne & Chongguang Li, 2017. "Commodity price bubbles and macroeconomics: evidence from the Chinese agricultural markets," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 48(6), pages 755-768, November.
    5. Go, You-How & Lau, Wee-Yeap, 2017. "Investor demand, market efficiency and spot-futures relation: Further evidence from crude palm oil," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 135-146.
    6. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert, 2014. "Volatility transmission in agricultural futures markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 541-546.
    7. Scott H. Irwin & Dwight R. Sanders, 2011. "Index Funds, Financialization, and Commodity Futures Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(1), pages 1-31.
    8. repec:fgv:epgewp:736 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Etienne, Xiaoli L. & Irwin, Scott H. & Garcia, Philip, 2014. "Bubbles in food commodity markets: Four decades of evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 129-155.
    10. Caravello, Tomas E. & Psaradakis, Zacharias & Sola, Martin, 2023. "Rational bubbles: Too many to be true?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    11. Gutierrez, Luciano, 2011. "Bootstrapping asset price bubbles," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2488-2493.
    12. Caramugan, Karlo Martin & Bayacag, Purisima, 2016. "Price Bubble in Selected ASEAN Agricultural Exports: An Application of the Generalized Supremum Augmented Dickey Fuller," MPRA Paper 74807, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. 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.
    14. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    15. Sharma, Shahil & Escobari, Diego, 2018. "Identifying price bubble periods in the energy sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 418-429.
    16. Vogel, Harold L. & Werner, Richard A., 2015. "An analytical review of volatility metrics for bubbles and crashes," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 15-28.
    17. Yuchao Fan, 2022. "Dissecting the dot-com bubble in the 1990s NASDAQ," Papers 2206.14130, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    18. Irwin, Scott H. & Sanders, Dwight R., 2012. "Testing the Masters Hypothesis in commodity futures markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 256-269.
    19. Fatima, Hira & Ahmed, Mumtaz, 2019. "Testing for Exuberance Behavior in Agricultural Commodities of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 95304, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Issler, João Victor & Rodrigues, Claudia & Burjack, Rafael, 2014. "Using common features to understand the behavior of metal-commodity prices and forecast them at different horizons," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 310-335.
    21. Lof, Matthijs & Nyberg, Henri, 2017. "Noncausality and the commodity currency hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 424-433.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • 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

    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:ags:faoaes:288981. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faoooit.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.