Distributional Impact of Commodity Price Shocks: Australia over a Century

Sambit Bhattacharyya and Jeffrey G. Williamson

No 2013-11, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: This paper studies the distributional impact of commodity price shocks over the both the short and very long run. Using a GARCH model, we find that Australia experienced more volatility than many commodity exporting developing countries over the periods 1865-1940 and 1960-2007. A single equation error correction model suggests that commodity price shocks increase the income share of the top 1, 0.05, and 0.01 percents in the short run. The very top end of the income distribution benefits from commodity booms disproportionately more than the rest of the society. The short run effect is mainly driven by wool and mining and not agricultural commodities. A sustained increase in the price of renewables (wool) reduces inequality whreas the same for non-renewable resources (minerals) increases inequality. We expect that the initial distribution of land and mineral resources explains the asymmetric result.

Keywords: commodity price shocks; commodity exporters; top incomes; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F43 N17 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-his, nep-ltv and nep-opm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Distributional Impact of Commodity Price Shocks: Australia over a Century (2013)
Working Paper: Distributional Impact of Commodity Price Shocks: Australia over a Century (2013)
Working Paper: Distributional Impact of Commodity Price Shocks: Australia over a century (2013)
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