Despite an extensive literature on contributing factors to the high commodity prices and volatility in the recent years, few have examined these causal factors together in one analysis. We quantify empirically the relative importance of three factors -global demand, speculation, and energy...

Cross-price elasticities are updated in this report, using the World Bank's 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP) data for 9 major consumption categories across 144 countries. The 2005 ICP offers the most recent consistent data set for such a large number of countries. The consumption...