The lack of growth in the Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol complex since the 2008 financial crisis has been blamed on policies: lower mandate, holding gasoline prices below world levels, high fuel taxes, and inadequate fuel tax exemptions for ethanol. This paper develops an empirical model of the...

Facing a huge fiscal burden due to imports of entire petroleum despite the availability of a surplus of agricultural land to produce biofuels, Zambia, a country in Sub-Saharan Africa, has recently introduced a biofuel mandate. But, a number of questions, particularly those related to the...

Using an empirical model, this study provides some insights into the functioning of the oilseed-biodiesel-diesel market complex in a large country that determines the biodiesel price, reflecting market equilibrium changes resulting from volatility in the crude oil price. Oilseed crushing...

After 2005, commodity prices experienced their longest and broadest boom since World War II. Agricultural prices have now come down considerably since their 2011 peak, but are still 40 percent higher in real terms than their 2000 lows. This paper briefly addresses the main arguments on the...

Previous sharp oil price declines have been accompanied by elevated ex post volatility. In contrast, volatility was much less elevated during the oil price crash in 2014/15. This paper provides evidence that oil prices declined in a relatively measured manner during 2014/15, with dispersion of...

Income growth in emerging economies has often been cited as a key driver of the past decade?s com-modity price boom?the longest and broadest boom since World War II. This paper shows that income has a negative and highly significant effect on real food commodity prices, a finding that is...

This study quantifies the relationship between Tanzanian and external maize markets while also accounting for domestic influences. It concludes that external influences on domestic prices originate from regional, rather than global, markets. It also shows that, compared to external factors,...

Rapid growth among the major emerging markets over the past 20 years has boosted global demand for commodities. The seven largest emerging markets accounted for almost all the increase in global consumption of metals, and two-thirds of the increase in energy consumption over this period. As...

With the benefit of hindsight, this paper provides a fresh and comprehensive look at the causes of the 2014-16 collapse in oil prices and its impact on the global economy. It disentangles the contribution of supply and demand factors, assesses the impact on activity in oil exporters and oil...

This paper presents estimates of time-varying income elasticities of demand for energy and metal commodities. The analysis finds that the elasticities are close to unity, evaluated at world median per capita income levels. Furthermore, the estimates confirm that as income rises, demand growth...