This paper examines the degree to which world price signals have been transmitted into domestic prices for eight countries and ten commodities, a total of 31 country/commodity pairs. The main characteristic of these countries was that they all undertook substantial policy reforms during the...

When variables included in an OLS regression are stationary, conventional statistical measures such as t-statistics and R2's - in addition to a priori information from economic theory - are the standard indicators used to assess the performance of the hypothesized model. However, if the...

This paper estimates growth rates of quantity and trade variables of 32 primary commodities for the periods 1970-1980, 1980-1990, and 1990-1999 through log-linear trend regressions. The properties of the models were assessed through conventional and stationarity statistics. Based on Monte Carlo...

With the exception of energy, all the key commodity price indices declined significantly in 2013. Fertilizer prices led the decline, down 17.4 percent from 2012, followed by precious metals (down almost 17 percent), agriculture (-7.2 percent), and metals (-5.5 percent). Crude oil prices (World...

The key commodity price indices were broadly stable during 2014. Energy prices changed little, only 0.4 higher than 2013; agricultural prices increased 1.8 percent on weather-related concerns and metal prices declined 3.2 percent on Chinese demand weakness. Agricultural prices are projected to ease...

Geopolitical concerns in Iraq and Ukraine/Russia earlier in the year put upward pressure on oil prices during the second quarter. As tensions moderate, oil prices are expected to decline in 2015. Metal prices eased during the 2014Q2 due to supply response from earlier investments and weakening...

Commodity prices are expected to remain weak for the remainder of 2014 and, perhaps through much of 2015. Crude oil has seen one of the sharpest declines, down more than 20 percent to $83/barrel (bbl) on October 15 from this year’s high of $108/bbl in mid-June. Agricultural prices have...