This paper considers whether there were periodically collapsing rational speculative bubbles in commodity prices over a forty year period from the late 1960s. We apply a switching regression approach to a broad range of commodities using two different measures of fundamental values – estimated...

Emerging economies, particularly those dependent on commodity exports, are prone to highly disruptive economic cycles. This paper proposes a small open economy model for a net commodity exporter to quantitatively study the triggers of these cycles. The economy consists of two sectors, one of...

There has been an increase in food price instability in recent years, with varied consequences for farmers, market participants, and consumers. Before policy makers can design schemes to reduce food price uncertainty or ameliorate its effects, they must first understand the factors that have...

Recent discussions on the volatility of agricultural prices have been drawing on factors as low short term elasticities of supply and demand, climatic risk, market uncertainty, central banks monetary policies, trade barriers, biofuel development and, finally, speculation. Much debate has aroused...

The prices of commodities have constantly been increasing over time but during the period of 2006-2008 there is a rapid increase being seen in these particular years. Therefore, this sharp increase can either be explained by real increases in demand and supply or by artificial increase due to...

We provide evidence on the dynamic effects of aggregate commodity demand shocks, commoditysupply shocks, and storage or other commodity-specific demand shocks on real commodity prices. We analyze a new dataset of price and production levels from 1870 to 2015 for 15 grains, metals, and soft...

Existing literature has relied on economic fundamentals (EFs) to determine commodity price booms and busts, This framework has been unable to account for major economic non-fundamentals (ENFs), This study takes a broader view of major ENFs that expands beyond the traditional demand and supply...

High and volatile prices of major commodities have generated a wide array of analyses and policy prescriptions, including influential studies identifying price bubbles in periods of high volatility. Here we consider a model of the market for a storable commodity in which price expectations are...