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...

The "Masters Hypothesis" is the claim that unprecedented buying pressure from new financial index investors created a massive bubble in agricultural futures prices at various times in recent years. This paper analyzes the market impact of financial index investment in agricultural futures...

We propose a model of seasonal gas markets which is flexible enough to include supply and demand shocks while also considering natural gas as an exhaustible resource. Using US data, we estimate the model’s structural parameters and test economically founded restrictions. We analyze,...

We propose a joint modeling of spot electricity prices, forwards prices and other derivative prices, using recent developments in discrete time asset pricing methods based on the notions of stochastic discount factor and of compound autoregressive (or affine) stochastic processes. We show that...

The value chain for energy and other commodities entails physical conversions through refineries, power plants, storage facilities, and transportation and other capital-intensive infrastructure. When the operation of such commodity conversion assets occurs alongside liquid markets for the input...

This study aims to examine the dynamics of the relationship between world crude oil prices and Indonesian stock market within the period of January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2013. The world crude oil prices referred to the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, whereas the composite indexes...

The ‘Masters Hypothesis’ is the claim that long-only index investment was a major driver of the 2007–2008 spike in commodity futures prices and energy futures prices in particular. Index position data compiled by the CFTC are carefully compared. In the energy markets, index position...

Increasing interconnectivity between electricity wholesale markets requires an efficient allocation scheme in order to provide access to scarce cross-border transmission capacities. In both the US and Europe, existing schemes have primarily induced economically inefficient interconnector use...

This article discusses the influence of speculators in the futures market on crude oil prices. The results suggest the dispersion in beliefs influences both crude oil prices and price volatility.