The general price level does not provide a sensitive indicator of whether monetary policy is tight or loose, because mostprices are sticky. Interest rates are free to move, but they are an ambiguous indicator of monetary policy: one does not know whether changes in the interest rate are due to...

In this article, we propose a cointegration-based Permanent-Transitory decomposition for non-stationary Dynamic Factor Models. Our methodology exploits the cointegration relations among the observable variables and assumes they are driven by a common and an idiosyncratic component. The common...

This paper studies the value of broad commodity price indexes as predictors of consumer price inflation in the G-7 industrial countries. After an introduction, the paper discusses the theoretical relationship between commodity and consumer prices and the conditions under which, in general, one...

The precautionary motive for saving is an important issue that is receiving increasing attention. Part of the motivation for this interest stems from the post war coincidence of two trends, one a decline in the U.S. rate of saving and the other an increase in insurance of various types,...

In our study, we individually forecast 26 metal prices one-month ahead and outperform the predefined benchmark model, a random-walk (with drift) in 18 (18) cases. These forecasts are based on an overview over a large set of potential predictors for mineral commodities, originating from studies...

We gather extensive global price and volume information to establish that exhaustible mineral commodities are both affordable and abundant. On average, we extract a kilogram of mineral for every 5$ of GDP, at a cost of 1⁄4$. We predict that economic growth will progressively decouple from...

In this paper we examine temporal properties of eleven natural resource real price series from 1870-1990 by employing a Lagrangian Multiplier unit root test that allows for two endogenously determined structural breaks with and without a quadratic trend. Contrary to previous research, we find...

This paper argues that precautionary savings against uncertain income comprise a large fraction of aggregate savings. A closed-form approximation for life cycle consumption subject to uncertain interest rates and earnings is derived by taking a second-order Taylor-Series approximation of the...

Agriculture is a main source of production of food crops. The food crops are produced, processed, promoted and distributed widely. Productions of these crops are diseased by pant pathogens and several environmental conditions. The market price of the crops decides their supplies and demand. Due...

This paper examines how aversion to risk and aversion to intertemporal substitution determine the strength of the precautionary saving motive in a two-period model with Selden/Kreps-Porteus preferences. For small risks, we derive a measure of the strength of the precautionary saving motive which...