Price effects of steel commodities on worldwide stock market returns

We analyze the price effects of steel commodities on stock market returns in emerging and developed economies. These commodities have recently attained increased media exposure due to the rise in the U.S. steel import tariffs, which pose the threat of reducing global demand for steel products and, consequently, lowering prices abroad. However, little has been investigated on the impact of steel commodity prices on worldwide stock market returns. By performing structural VAR and GARCH techniques on a weekly-frequency time series from 2002 to 2015, we find positive and statistically significant effects of linear and non-linear steel commodity price shocks on real stock returns in the commodity markets. In the highly diversified financial markets such as U.S. and Germany, real stock returns do not significantly respond to steel commodity price shocks, although we find highly significant positive responses from developed economies such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. Results are robust to different model specifications. Our evidence suggests that higher tariffs on steel imports represent a larger disadvantage to commodity markets which are more largely impacted by steel commodity prices. We provide economic policy implications based on recent literature.     

THE ROLE OF INVENTORIES AND SPECULATIVE TRADING IN THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR CRUDE OIL

We develop a structural model of the global market for crude oil that for the first time explicitly allows for shocks to the speculative demand for oil as well as shocks to flow demand and flow supply. The speculative component of the real price of oil is identified with the help of data on oil inventories. Our estimates rule out explanations of the 2003–2008 oil price surge based on unexpectedly diminishing oil supplies and based on speculative trading. Instead, this surge was caused by unexpected increases in world oil consumption driven by the global business cycle. There is evidence, however, that speculative demand shifts played an important role during earlier oil price shock episodes including 1979, 1986 and 1990. Our analysis implies that additional regulation of oil markets would not have prevented the 2003–2008 oil price surge. We also show that, even after accounting for the role of inventories in smoothing oil consumption, our estimate of the short‐run price elasticity of oil demand is much higher than traditional estimates from dynamic models that do not account for for the endogeneity of the price of oil. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroeconomic Effects of Precautionary Demand for Oil

We evaluate the macroeconomic effects of shocks specific to the oil market, which mainly reflect fluctuations in precautionary demand for oil driven by uncertainty about future supplies. A two‐stage identification procedure is used. First, daily changes in the futures–spot price spread proxy for precautionary demand shocks and the path of oil prices is estimated. This information is then exploited to restrict the oil price response in a vector autoregression. Impulse responses suggest that such shocks reduce output and raise prices. Historical decomposition shows that they contributed significantly to the US recessions in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, but not to the most recent slump. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of Relative Sectoral Prices: The Role of Demographic Change

Demographic change raises demand for non‐tradable old‐age related services relative to tradable commodities. This demand shift increases the relative price of non‐tradables and thereby causes real exchange rates to appreciate. We claim that the change in demand affects prices via imperfect intersectoral factor mobility. Using a sample of 15 OECD countries, we estimate a robust increase of relative prices. According to our main estimate, up to one fifth of the average increase in relative prices between 1970 and 2009 can be attributed to population ageing. Further findings confirm the relevance of imperfect factor mobility: Countries with more rigid labour markets experience stronger price effects.     

Crude oil price dynamics with crash risk under fundamental shocks

Our paper presents a crude oil price model in which the price is confined in a wide moving band. A price crash occurs when the price breaches the lower boundary where a smooth-pasting condition is imposed. Using an asymmetric mean-reverting fundamental (supply/demand) shock, the solution derived from the oil price equation for the model shows the oil price follows a mean-reverting square-root process, which is quasi-bounded at the boundary. The oil price dynamics generates left-skewed price distributions consistent with empirical observations. A weakened mean-reverting force for the price increases the probability leakage for the price across the boundary and the risk of a price crash. The empirical results show the oil price dynamics can be calibrated according to the model, where the mean reversion of the price dynamics is positively co-integrated with the oil production reaction to negative demand shocks, and with the risk reversals of the commodity currencies, the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar in currency option markets. The results are consistent with an increased price crash risk with negative demand shocks and negative risk reversals. The forecasting performance of the oil price model is better than the futures-spread models and random walk models during the crash periods. While the price of oil was above the lower boundary for most of the time, the conditions for breaching the boundary were met in 2008 and 2014 when the price fell sharply.     

Commodity-price volatility and macroeconomic spillovers: Evidence from nine emerging markets

The recent decade has witnessed wild swings in global commodity prices, with large increases preceding the Global Financial Crisis and steep declines following the crash. Many emerging markets find themselves destabilized by these fluctuations, not only when price increases lead to currency appreciations and reduced competitiveness, but also when price decreases cause capital outflows and deteriorations in the balance of payments. This study examines the volatility processes of six major commodity prices, before applying Multivariate GARCH analysis to examine spillovers among important commodity prices and output, exchange rates, interest rates and inflation in major emerging markets. While each commodity and each country behaves differently, we find that Chile is most closely tied to the copper price, and Indonesia to oil and tin, while neighbors such as Brazil and the Philippines are less affected. Perhaps surprisingly, Russia is found to be highly insulated from fluctuations in world oil prices.     

Oil price shocks and credit spread: Structural effect and dynamic spillover

This study analyzes the heterogeneous response of U.S. credit spread to global oil price shocks by building an extended structural vector autoregressive model (SVAR), which can distinguish among the U.S. and non-US oil supply shocks, aggregated demand shocks and oil market-specific demand shocks behind the real oil prices. Meanwhile, a spillover index model developed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) (hereafter D.Y. (2012)) is used to estimate the link between oil price shocks and the U.S. credit spread over time. The results show that (i) the credit spread does not respond to global oil supply shocks and non-US oil supply shocks, but has a negative reaction to the U.S. oil supply shocks, aggregate demand shocks, and oil-market-specific demand shocks. (ii) There exists a close connectedness between oil price shocks and the U.S. credit spread, and the link fluctuates cyclically and relates to the economic cycle and the U.S. shale oil revolution. (iii) The spillover from different oil price shocks to the U.S. credit spread shows significant heterogeneity over time. Our findings suggest that policymakers and investors can better track the U.S. credit spread changes using oil price information.     

Commodity market reform in Africa: some recent experience

Since the early 1980s, dramatic changes in export commodity markets, shocks associated with resulting price declines and changing views on the role of the state have ushered in widespread reforms to agricultural commodity markets in Africa. The reforms significantly reduced government participation in the marketing and pricing of commodities. This paper examines the background, causes, process and consequences of these reforms and derives lessons for successful reforms from experiences in markets for four commodities important to Africa—cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar. The commodity focus of the paper highlights the special features associated with these markets that affect the reform process. The paper complements the current literature on market reforms in Africa, where grain market studies are more common. We suggest that the types of market interventions prior to reform are more easily classified by crop than by country. Consequently, there are significant commodity-specific differences in the initial conditions and in the outcomes of reforms related to these markets. However, there are general lessons as well. We find that the key consequences of reform have been significant changes in or emergence of marketing institutions, and a significant shift of political and economic power from public to private sector. In cases where interventions were greatest and reforms most complete, producers have benefited from receiving a larger share of export prices. Additionally, we conclude that the adjustment costs of reform can be reduced in most cases by better understanding the detailed and idiosyncratic relationships between the commodity subsector, private markets, and public services. Finally, while there are significant costs to market-dependent reforms, experiences suggest that they are a necessary step toward a dynamic commodity sector based on private initiative. Indeed, this is particularly true in countries and sectors where interventions were greatest and market-supporting institutions the weakest.     

Oil prices,stock returns,and exchange rates: Empirical evidence from China and the United States

Employing the diagonal BEKK model as well as the dynamic impulse response functions, this study investigates the time-varying trilateral relationships among real oil prices, exchange rate changes, and stock market returns in China and the U.S. from February 1991 to December 2015. We highlight several key observations: (i) oil prices respond positively and significantly to aggregate demand shocks; (ii) positive oil supply shocks adversely and significantly affect the Chinese stock market; (iii) oil price shocks persistently and significantly impact the trade-weighted US dollar index negatively; (iv) the US and China stock markets correlate positively just as the dollar index and the exchange rate does; (v) a significant parallel inverse relation exists between the US stock market and the dollar and between the China stock market and the exchange rate; and (vi) the Chinese stock market is more volatile and responsive to aggregate demand and oil price shocks than the US stock market in recent years.     

The nonlinear effect of oil price shocks on financial stress: Evidence from China

This paper examines the nonlinear effects of different types of oil price shocks on China’s financial stress index (FSI). For this purpose, we use newly proposed framework by Ready (2018) to decompose oil prices into supply, demand and risk shocks. Then, we use a Markov regime-switching (MRS) model to investigate the nonlinear effects of these oil price shocks on China’s FSI. The empirical results show that the effects of three oil price shocks are nonlinear under different regimes. In particular, oil supply shocks mainly have a significantly positive effect on China’s FSI in the low-volatility state; demand shocks have negative effects on China’s FSI in different regimes, but this effect is larger in the low-volatility state; the effect of risk shocks on China’s FSI is the opposite, and it is positive in the high-volatility state but negative in the low-volatility state.     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Oil Price Volatility

This paper shows that higher macroeconomic uncertainty causes higher oil price volatility. Regimes of low and high uncertainty are identified in a threshold VAR model in which the effects of structural oil demand and supply shocks are estimated. The results show that higher macroeconomic uncertainty, as measured by global industrial production volatility, significantly increases the sensitivity of oil prices to shocks in oil demand and supply. This occurs as uncertainty lowers the price elasticity of oil demand and supply. The difference in the estimated oil price elasticities is economically meaningful as the price impact of a similar change in oil production might double when it hits the economy in uncertain times. As such, varying uncertainty can explain why oil price volatility is typically higher during periods such as financial crises and recessions, and why oil price volatility changes over time more generally.     

China‐commodity nexus at the heart of global upturn

• ? The China‐commodity nexus has been at the heart of the global upturn in trade and industry. It could directly and indirectly account for as much as 70% of the recovery since mid‐2016, based on our analysis. We think this nexus will continue to support world growth in the near term, but the global upturn is vulnerable to moderating Chinese growth and slippage in commodity prices.
• ? China has directly accounted for around a third of the upturn in world trade, similar to the contribution of G7 countries. But adding in indirect effects, China's influence is likely to have been much more significant. Stronger Chinese demand has contributed to an improvement in the trade performance of its Asian trading partners, commodity exporters and other advanced economies.
• ? Using a model simulation that introduces positive shocks to imports in “greater China” and to commodity prices (based on the scale we have seen since mid‐2016), our top‐end estimate for China's contribution to the upturn in world trade is around 70%.
• ? The simulation points to especially strong improvements in output and exports for economies such as South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and some commodity exporters. This broadly matches the pattern of performance seen over recent months, though commodity exporters' performance has been quite mixed.
• ? G7 investment growth is likely to have played only a modest role in the recent global upturn. But Japan is an exception, while upgrades to investment forecasts for South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have also been large.
• ? A 1% rise in commodity prices could raise commodity exporters' investment by 0.3–0.6%, based on our analysis. As a result, there could be additional improvement in commodity exporters' investment this year, supporting world growth. However, with our forecasts suggesting that commodity prices are set to slip further over the coming quarters, this boost could prove short‐lived.

     

What Drives Oil Prices? Emerging Versus Developed Economies

We explore the role of demand from emerging and developed economies as drivers of the real price of oil. Using a FAVAR model that identifies shocks from different regions of the world, we find that demand from emerging economies (most notably from Asian countries) is more than twice as important as demand from developed countries in accounting for the fluctuations in the real oil price and in oil production. Furthermore, geographical regions respond differently to adverse oil market shocks that drive up oil prices, with Europe and North America being more negatively affected than countries in Asia and South America. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Commodity house prices

This paper studies how commodity price movements have affected the local house prices in commodity-dependent economies, Australia and New Zealand. We build a geographically hierarchical empirical model and find that the commodity prices influence local house prices directly and also indirectly through macroeconomic variables. The impacts of commodity price changes are analogous to “income shocks” rather than “cost shocks”. Regional heterogeneity is also observed in terms of differential dynamic responses of local house prices to energy versus non-energy commodity price movements. The results are robust to alternative approaches. Directions for future research are also discussed.     

Investigating properties of commodity price responses to real and nominal shocks

This paper studies dynamic adjustments of 49 world commodity prices in response to innovations in the nominal exchange rate and the world real GDP. After we estimate the dynamic elasticity of the prices with respect to these shocks, we obtain the kernel density of our estimates to establish stylized facts on the adjustment process of the commodity price toward a new equilibrium path. Our empirical findings imply, on average, that the law of one price holds in the long-run, whereas the substantial degree of short-run price rigidity was observed in response to the nominal exchange rate shock. The real GDP shock tends to generate substantial price fluctuations in the short-run because adjustments of the supply can be limited, but have much weaker effects in the long-run as the supply eventually counterbalances the increase in the demand. Overall, we report persistent long-lasting effects of the nominal exchange rate shock on commodity prices relative to those of the real GDP shock.     

Five shocks that could lead to recession

• ? Although world growth has slowed sharply, we are still some way from global recession territory. Additional shocks, probably in combination, would be needed to tip the global economy into recession.
• ? Of the range of possible shocks, we consider five plausible candidates: rising oil prices, a sharp slump in equities, tightening credit standards, a financial shock to emerging markets, and further escalation in trade tensions.
• ? By themselves, each would need to be very large to trigger a recession. However, a combined set of plausibly‐sized shocks could well be enough. Historically it is common for different shocks to coincide or overlap, and there is a risk of a slowdown feeding on its own momentum.
• ? In our view, the risk of these shocks occurring is not insignificant, as we've seen in recent oil price volatility and given factors such as high equity valuations.

     

Oil structural shocks,bank-level characteristics,and systemic risk: Evidence from dual banking systems

By performing a structural VAR analysis on oil price shocks, we provide an evidence on how the origins of oil price shocks impact the risk level of banks in oil-exporting countries and whether bank-level characteristics can influence the sensitivity of risk to oil shocks. When conducting panel regression analysis, we document the following findings. First, not all shocks have the same effect on bank risk. Due to oil supply shocks, the increase in oil price raises bank risk, whereas the similar increase in price due to economic expansion or oil-market specific demand reduces that risk. Second, the business model (whether the bank is Islamic or conventional), size, income diversification, profitability, and financial leverage influence the bank risk exposure to oil shocks differently. Third, the two major recent crises (global financial crises and COVID-19 pandemic) magnified bank risk exposure to oil supply shocks and speculative oil demand shocks. Overall, the structural oil shocks explain a large fraction of the variation in financial stability in GCC countries.     

The transmission of US economic policy uncertainty shocks to Asian and global financial markets

This paper proposes a novel approach to investigating the spillover effects of US economic policy uncertainty shocks on the global financial markets. Employing a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR), we model US economic policy uncertainty jointly with the latent factors extracted from equity prices, exchange rates, and commodity prices. We find that US economic policy uncertainty affects these factors significantly. A country-level analysis shows heterogeneous responses to an increase in US economic policy uncertainty. With regard to equities, US economic policy uncertainty adversely affects equity prices. However, its impact on the Chinese equity market is relatively small. As for foreign exchange markets, while many currencies depreciate in response to an increase in US economic policy uncertainty, the US dollar and the Japanese yen appreciate, reflecting their safe-haven status. The Chinese yuan, whose nominal exchange rate is closely linked to the US dollar, also appreciates in response to uncertainty shocks.     

The asymmetric effect of crude oil prices on stock prices in major international financial markets

The aim of this paper is to explore the potential asymmetric impacts of positive and negative shocks in crude oil prices on stock prices in six major international financial markets which include China, Hong Kong, America, Japan, Britain, and Germany. We test for these asymmetric effects on 8 major international financial markets indices over the 2007M01–2020M03 periods. Our independent measures include the prices of Brent crude oil futures and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures. We use the nonlinear ARDL (NARDL) model proposed by Shin et al. (2014), which can capture both short- and long-run nonlinearities through positive and negative partial sum decompositions of the explanatory variables. This research finds that positive and negative fluctuations of oil price have asymmetric effects on stock price index in four financial markets, but the performance of the asymmetry is different. Specifically, the impacts of volatility in oil prices on two indices of Chinese stock prices are different, and the asymmetric effects of oil price volatility on stock price indices in China and other financial markets are significantly different.     

The impact of the global business cycle on small open economies: A FAVAR approach for Canada

Building on the growing evidence on the importance of large data sets for empirical macroeconomic modeling, we use a large factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model to analyze how global developments affect the Canadian economy. We focus on several sources of shocks, including commodity prices, foreign economic activity, and foreign interest rates, and evaluate the impact of each shock on key Canadian macroeconomic variables. Results indicate that Canada is primarily exposed to shocks to foreign activity and to commodity prices. In contrast, the impact of shocks to global interest rates and global inflation is substantially lower.