The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices Small Trends and Big Variability

Using the longest dataset publicly available (The Economist's index of industrial commodity prices), we analyze the behavior of real commodity prices over the period 1862-99, and have two main findings. First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of 1.3 percent per yea...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cashin, Paul
Other Authors: McDermott, C.
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2001
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 02480nmm a2200505 u 4500
001 EB000930072
003 EBX01000000000000000723668
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 150128 ||| eng
020 |a 9781451848991 
100 1 |a Cashin, Paul 
245 0 0 |a The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices  |b Small Trends and Big Variability  |c Paul Cashin, C. McDermott 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2001 
300 |a 27 pages 
651 4 |a United States 
653 |a Price indexes 
653 |a Inflation 
653 |a Commodity price fluctuations 
653 |a Exchange rate arrangements 
653 |a Currency; Foreign exchange 
653 |a Commodity price indexes 
653 |a Deflation 
653 |a Investments: Commodities 
653 |a Commodities 
653 |a Price Level 
653 |a Foreign Exchange 
653 |a Cycles 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Prices 
653 |a Commodity prices 
653 |a Business Fluctuations 
653 |a Agriculture: Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis 
653 |a Investment & securities 
653 |a Commercial products 
653 |a Foreign exchange 
653 |a Commodity Markets 
700 1 |a McDermott, C. 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b IMF  |a International Monetary Fund 
490 0 |a IMF Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.5089/9781451848991.001 
856 4 0 |u https://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2001/068/001.2001.issue-068-en.xml?cid=15096-com-dsp-marc  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a Using the longest dataset publicly available (The Economist's index of industrial commodity prices), we analyze the behavior of real commodity prices over the period 1862-99, and have two main findings. First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of 1.3 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long-run trend decline in commodity prices. Second, there is evidence of a ratcheting up in the variability of price movements. The amplitude of price movements increased in the early 1900s, while the frequency of large price movements increased after the collapse of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s. While there is a downward trend in real commodity prices, this is of little practical policy relevance as it is small and completely dominated by the variability of prices