"Alors que les innovations financières, les subprimes et l'économie de casino sont brandies par la classe politique comme les seuls éléments caractéristiques à l'origine d'une crise du capitalisme en ce début du XXIe siècle, cet ouvrage s'interroge sur l'existence de changements d'une...

Over the past 10 years, financial firms have increased the size of their positions in the oil futures market. At the same time, oil prices have increased dramatically. The conjunction of these developments has led some observers to argue that financial speculation caused the run-up in oil...

Using futures data for the period 1990 - 2008, this paper finds evidence that expansionary monetary policy surprises tend to increase crude and heating oil prices, and contractionary monetary policy shocks increase gold and platinum prices. Our analysis uncovers substantial heterogeneity in the...

Futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange are the most liquid instruments for trading crude oil, which is the world’s most actively traded physical commodity. Under normal market conditions, traders can easily find counterparties for their trades, resulting in an efficient market...