The commodity price boom that emerged in 2004 has proved far more persevering than its predecessors of 1950 and 1973. Some analysts have suggested that it may represent the start of a "supercycle" caused by the voracious raw materials demand from China and other emerging economies, with prices...

In their recent article, Tilton et al. (2011, Resour. Policy, 36, 187–195) contend on the basis of conceptual and theoretical arguments that spot and futures prices for metals and other commodities should be closely correlated during periods of strong contango and much less correlated during...