 Commodity prices, interest rates and the dollarEnergy Economics, 2009, vol. 31, issue 6, 838-851 Abstract: This paper sheds light on recent fluctuations in commodity prices. We investigate whether a decline in real interest rates and the US dollar contributes to higher commodity prices, and whether commodity prices display overshooting behavior in response to changes in real interest rates. We analyze the behavior of real prices of crude oil, food, metals and industrial raw materials. The analysis is based on structural VAR models estimated on quarterly data over the period 1990q1-2007q4. Our results suggest that commodity prices increase significantly in response to reductions in real interest rates. Moreover, oil prices and prices of industrial raw materials tend to display overshooting behavior in response to such interest rate changes. The evidence also suggests that a weaker dollar leads to higher commodity prices. Shocks to interest rates and the dollar are found to account for substantial shares of fluctuations in commodity prices. Keywords: Commodity; prices; Interest; rates; Exchange; rates; VAR; models (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:31:y:2009:i:6:p:838-851 Access Statistics for this article Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier |
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