Deconstructing Wheat Price Spikes
Author | : United States Department of Agriculture |
Publisher | : CreateSpace |
Total Pages | : 48 |
Release | : 2014-12-09 |
ISBN-10 | : 1505433606 |
ISBN-13 | : 9781505433609 |
Rating | : 4/5 (06 Downloads) |
Download or read book Deconstructing Wheat Price Spikes written by United States Department of Agriculture and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008, wheat futures prices spiked and then crashed along with prices for other agri-cultural and nonagricultural commodities. Market observers offered several theories to explain this common movement, or comovement, in prices, and have proposed policies to address the perceived problem of excessive price volatility. The design of an appropriate policy response would benefit from a better understanding of the cause of the observed price movements. This study uses an econometric model to decompose observed wheat prices into a set of economic factors and measure the relative contribution of each factor to observed price changes. Findings show that market-specific shocks related to supply and demand for wheat were the dominant cause of price spikes in the three U.S. wheat futures markets. Fluctuations in the global macroeconomy associated with broadbased demand shocks were relatively less significant for wheat than for other commodities like crude oil and corn. Finally, little evidence suggests commodity index trading contributed to recent price spikes.