Reviving the Competitive Storage Model: A Holistic Approach to Food Commodity Prices

Norbert Funke, Weifeng Wu and Yanliang Miao

No 2011/064, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: We revive in this paper the empirical relevance of the competitive storage model by taking a holistic approach to food commodity prices. We augment the seminal Deaton and Laroque (1992, 1996) model by incorporating more comprehensive and realistic supply and demand factors: output and demand trends, shocks to the yield, and time-varying interest rates. While the computational burden increases exponentially, the augmented model succeeds in replicating all four key patterns of food commodity prices. Our simulation and comparative statics also show that (i) the long-run declining trend of food prices may come to a halt or even reverse due to the shifting balance between supply and demand; (ii) short-run price fluctuations are mainly attributable to sizeable, though low-probability, shocks to output such as inclement weather; and (iii) the impact of monetary policy, though small in normal times, is nonlinear and asymmetric, and can become large if the real rate passes a certain threshold.

Keywords: WP; consumer demand; real interest rate; market price; shadow price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47
Date: 2011-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=24720 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2011/064

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().