IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/10441.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hoard Behavior During Commodity Bubbles

Author

Listed:
  • Hong, Harrison G
  • de Paula, Aureo
  • Singh, Vishal

Abstract

Hoarding by large speculators is often blamed for contributing to commodity market panics and bubbles. Using supermarket scanner data on US household purchases during the 2008 Rice Bubble, we show that hoarding is in fact more systemic, affecting even households who have no resale motive. Export bans led to a spike in prices worldwide in the first half of 2008, which spilled over into US markets. Anticipating shortages, US households with previous purchases of rice, especially those of Asian ethnicity, nearly doubled their buying around the peak of the bubble. We document transmission mechanisms through over-extrapolation from high prices and contagion, as many households bought rice for the first and last time during the bubble.

Suggested Citation

  • Hong, Harrison G & de Paula, Aureo & Singh, Vishal, 2015. "Hoard Behavior During Commodity Bubbles," CEPR Discussion Papers 10441, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10441
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP10441
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(1 (Spring), pages 215-283.
    2. David Atkin, 2013. "Trade, Tastes, and Nutrition in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1629-1663, August.
    3. Sen, Amartya, 1983. "Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198284635.
    4. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    5. Aviv Nevo, 2011. "Empirical Models of Consumer Behavior," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 51-75, September.
    6. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Jean-Pierre H. Dube & Matthew Gentzkow, 2012. "The Evolution of Brand Preferences: Evidence from Consumer Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2472-2508, October.
    7. 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.
    8. Tom Slayton, 2009. "Rice Crisis Forensics: How Asian Governments Carelessly Set the World Rice Market on Fire," Working Papers 163, Center for Global Development.
    9. Liran Einav & Ephraim Leibtag & Aviv Nevo, 2010. "Recording discrepancies in Nielsen Homescan data: Are they present and do they matter?," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 207-239, June.
    10. José A. Scheinkman & Jack Schechtman, 1983. "A Simple Competitive Model with Production and Storage," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(3), pages 427-441.
    11. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    12. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2015. "Commodity Futures Prices: Some Evidence on Forecast Power, Premiums, and the Theory of Storage," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 4, pages 79-102, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Ke Tang & Wei Xiong, 2012. "Index Investment and the Financialization of Commodities," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(6), pages 54-74, November.
    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. Harrison Hong & Áureo de Paula & Vishal Singh, 2015. "Hoard Behavior and Commodity Bubbles," NBER Working Papers 20974, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Christopher Hansman & Harrison Hong & Áureo de Paula & Vishal Singh, 2020. "A Sticky-Price View of Hoarding," NBER Working Papers 27051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ing-Haw Cheng & Wei Xiong, 2014. "Financialization of Commodity Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 419-441, December.
    4. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Jean-Pierre H. Dube & Matthew Gentzkow, 2012. "The Evolution of Brand Preferences: Evidence from Consumer Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2472-2508, October.
    5. Acharya, Viral V. & Lochstoer, Lars A. & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2013. "Limits to arbitrage and hedging: Evidence from commodity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 441-465.
    6. Nikolay Gospodinov & Ibrahim Jamali, 2013. "Monetary policy surprises, positions of traders, and changes in commodity futures prices," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2013-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    7. Jose de Sousa & Eve Sihra & Thierry Mayer, 2019. "Market Integration and Convergence in Consumption Patterns," 2019 Meeting Papers 1178, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Symeonidis, Lazaros & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Brooks, Chris & Lazar, Emese, 2012. "Futures basis, inventory and commodity price volatility: An empirical analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2651-2663.
    9. Christophe Gouel, 2012. "Agricultural Price Instability: A Survey Of Competing Explanations And Remedies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 129-156, February.
    10. Sung Je Byun, 2017. "Speculation in Commodity Futures Markets, Inventories and the Price of Crude Oil," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    11. Buncic, Daniel & Moretto, Carlo, 2015. "Forecasting copper prices with dynamic averaging and selection models," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 1-38.
    12. Serena Ng & Francisco J. Ruge-Murcia, 2000. "Explaining the Persistence of Commodity Prices," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 16(1/2), pages 149-171, October.
    13. Yao, Wei & Alexiou, Constantinos, 2022. "Exploring the transmission mechanism of speculative and inventory arbitrage activity to commodity price volatility. Novel evidence for the US economy," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Karlygash Kurlbayeva & Samuel Malone, 2012. "The determinants of extreme commodity prices," OxCarre Working Papers 096, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Colin A. Carter & Gordon C. Rausser & Aaron Smith, 2011. "Commodity Booms and Busts," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 87-118, October.
    16. Marit Hinnosaar, 2023. "The Persistence of Healthy Behaviors in Food Purchasing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 521-537, May.
    17. Hélyette Geman & Vu-Nhat Nguyen, 2005. "Soybean Inventory and Forward Curve Dynamics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1076-1091, July.
    18. Plantinga, Andrew J. & Provencher, Bill, 2001. "Internal Consistency In Models Of Optimal Resource Use Under Uncertainty," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20712, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Andriosopoulos, Kostas & Nomikos, Nikos, 2014. "Performance replication of the Spot Energy Index with optimal equity portfolio selection: Evidence from the UK, US and Brazilian markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 571-582.
    20. Chambers, Marcus J & Bailey, Roy E, 1996. "A Theory of Commodity Price Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 924-957, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commodity bubbles; Commodity pricing; Hoarding; Rice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:10441. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.