The Myth of Comoving Commodity Prices

There is a common perception that the prices of unrelated commodities move together. This paper re-examines this notion, using a measure of comovement of economic time series called concordance. Concordance measures the proportion of time that the prices of two commodities are concurrently in the sa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: McDermott, C.
Other Authors: Scott, Alasdair, Cashin, Paul
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 1999
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Oil
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:There is a common perception that the prices of unrelated commodities move together. This paper re-examines this notion, using a measure of comovement of economic time series called concordance. Concordance measures the proportion of time that the prices of two commodities are concurrently in the same boom period or same slump period. Using data on the prices of several unrelated commodities, the paper finds no evidence of comovement in commodity prices. The results carry an important policy implication, as the study provides no support for earlier claims of irrational trading behavior by participants in world commodity markets
Physical Description:20 pages
ISBN:9781451858327