"The link between commodities prices and the business cycle, including variables such as real GDP, industrial production, unemployment, inflation, and market uncertainty, has often be debated in the macroeconomic literature. To quantify the impact of commodities on the economy, one can...

This paper estimates a nonlinear Threshold-VAR to investigate if a Keynesian liquidity trap due to a speculative motive was in place in the U.S. Great Depression and the recent Great Recession. We find clear evidence in favor of a breakdown of the liquidity effect after an unexpected increase in...