Responding to High Commodity Prices

The recent commodity price boom resulted from rising demand in the face of a long period of low supply growth and market distortions. Structural factors are expected to return international commodity prices to relatively high levels as the global economy recovers. The Asian and Pacific economies and the region's poor will be among the most exposed to a rebound in prices. The recent response to high commodity prices can be improved upon. At the global level, the priority for Asian and Pacific governments is to seek a commitment to lessening distortions favouring bio-fuels. At the regional level, there is a need to address the use of trade restrictions on food commodities in Asia, notably rice. At a national level, the long-term neglect of the rural economy warrants correction; and efforts to expand and make social safety nets more 'market friendly' are called for.     

基于逐步回归模型的哈尔滨商品房价格分析

以哈尔滨商品房价格为研究对象,分析了影响房价的因素,选取解释变量。应用SPSS统计软件,建立了逐步回归模型,并验证了多因子逐步回归模型在哈尔滨商品房价格预测中的适用性与可靠性,最后提出了政策性建议。     

Relation of Uncertainty in Fluctuations of Energy Commodity Demand and Prices to Forecasting Timeframe

Several Russian and foreign forecasts of energy industry development have been analyzed that were made in various years for up to 20–25 years. The extent and type of temporal variations in uncertainty ranges of forecast indexes in Russia and worldwide have been studied. The indexes include fluctuations of energy commodity prices, electricity and fuel production and consumption, etc. The calculated data have been given. The relations of uncertainty ranges of different indexes to the change in the considered timeframe have been constructed.     

How the Nature of Product Differentiation Affects Procurement Competition

This article uses computational methods that reveal substantive differences among the equilibrium outcomes from three models of procurement competition: a recently developed model requiring numerical solution and two analytically tractable models that might naturally be considered suitable proxies. The models differ in what sellers know about the buyer's preferences for their products, and they yield substantially different prices and payoffs, different implications for institutional choice, surprising intensities of competition, and qualitatively different comparative statics. These findings caution against using the analytically convenient models when the newer model is empirically appropriate. Reinterpreting the models and results also provides new insights regarding price discrimination in oligopoly.     

Commodity Prices, Inflationary Pressures, and Monetary Policy: Evidence from BRICS Economies

We assess the transmission of monetary policy and the impact of fluctuations in commodity prices on the real economy for the five biggest and fastest growing emerging market economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Using modern econometric techniques, we show that a monetary policy contraction has a negative effect on output, suggesting that it can lean against unexpected macroeconomic shocks even when the financial markets are not well-developed in this group of countries. We also uncover the importance of commodity price shocks, which lead to a rise in inflation and demand an aggressive behaviour from central banks towards inflation stabilisation.     

Impact of Competition and Taxes on Responsibility Center Organization and Transfer Prices*

We show that a firm can use its decentralized organizational structure and transfer price as commitment devices to obtain strategic advantage in the product market only when there are nonstrategic reasons to decentralize and to distort transfer prices away from marginal costs, such as the sales office's local knowledge about market conditions and the presence of tax rate differentials across the two tax jurisdictions. Surprisingly, an increase in the sales office's tax rates may help a firm increase overall profits. An increase in the sales office's tax rates causes the firm to increase its transfer price, which in turn dampens the sales office's competition and may more than offset the effect of increased tax rates on the firm's overall profits.     

Pass-through Effects of Global Commodity Prices on China＇s Inflation： An Empirical Investigation

The present paper uses a two-step approach to estimate the pass-through effects of changes in international commodity prices and the RMB exchange rate on domestic consumer price inflation in China. We first estimate the pass-through effects of international commodity prices on producer prices and then estimate the pass-through effects of producer price inflation on consumer price inflation. We find that a l O-percent increase in international commodity prices would lead to China＇ s producer prices increasing by 1.2 percent 3 months later, which in turn would increase China＇ s domestic inflation by 0.24 percent over the same period. However, a 10-percent appreciation of the RMB exchange rate against the US dollar would help to reduce increases in producer prices by 4.4 percent over the following 3 months, which in turn would lead to a 0. 89-percent decline in consumer price inflation over the same period. Our findings suggest that appreciation of the RMB in an environment of rising global commodity prices and a weak US dollar could be an effective instrument to help contain inflation in China.     

基于协整方法的我国白糖大宗商品交易市场与期货市场价格引导关系研究

糖价大幅波动不利于糖产业链的稳定发展。确定期现价格的引导关系是白糖供求双方利用白糖期货进行套期保值交易的基本条件。白糖大宗商品交易价格是更具代表性的白糖现货价格。从长期来看,白糖期货价格与其大宗商品交易价格之间存在均衡关系,白糖期货价格在长期中受其自身和大宗商品交易价格的双重影响。从短期来看,白糖大宗商品交易价格变动对白糖期货价格变动有更大的影响力。格兰杰因果检验结果进一步证实了这种关系。     

我国出口竞争中量增价低现象的“公地悲剧”模型分析

本文利用"公地悲剧"模型,结合博弈论,证明我国部分行业出口市场价格持续下降的原因,并提出改善这种状况的对策与建议。     

Commodity prices in Copenhagen

Abstract

The publication of reliable statistical material relating to the history of prices is an exceedingly difficult task. An enormous amount of work has to be expended, first in tracing and collating information about prices, then in so arranging it as to form a yardstick for measuring the market value of a similar quantity and quality of a commodity over a long period of time. It is generally recognised by economic historians that the earliest work in this field was undertaken without a full appreciation of the difficulties, and that the conclusions drawn were not always based upon as detailed, comprehensive and critical a study of the sources as was really required. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the somewhat sceptical view which some present-day economic historians take of studies in the history of prices.     

乌鲁木齐市“房价”与“地价”关系研究

在综合分析国内外相关学者对房价及地价关系分析的基础上,运用乌鲁木齐市2003年—2010年房价及地价的季度数据,在借助相关性分析模型、格兰杰因果关系检验模型、方差分析模型及非线性回归分析等统计分析模型对房价及地价的因果关系、相互影响的显著性水平以及影响程度进行深入分析。研究结果表明:乌鲁木齐市地价变化是影响房价变化的重要原因,对房价的影响具有较高的显著性,影响程度较大。     

Pump Prices and Oil Prices: A Tale of Two Directions

It has been argued that retail gasoline prices adjust more quickly to crude oil price increases than to price decreases. We investigate this issue using the statewide data on weekly retail gasoline prices in the United States between January 2000 and June 2007. Our analysis does not confirm the prediction that gasoline prices adjust more quickly to price increases in crude oil prices. On the contrary, the results suggest that in some geographic areas gasoline prices could change faster when crude oil prices decrease. These findings suggest that a national or a one size fits all energy policy for the United States may be misguided.

Inefficiency in Cadaveric Organ Procurement

The shortage of cadaveric human organs made available for transplantation has reached critical proportions and is now causing over 6000 deaths each year in the United States alone. Economically, this shortage appears to stem from at least two principal underlying causes, both of which are attributable to the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act: (i) a legal prohibition on payments to organ donors and/or their surviving family members; and (ii) the legislatively mandated structure of the organ procurement industry, which specifies a group of nonprofit regional monopsonists as collection agents. Here, we focus' on some consequences of the latter restriction. Using a frontier methodology, we estimate the magnitude of the inefficiencies exhibited by the individual procurement agencies (relative to the most efficient) after controlling for exogenous factors. Our findings show that, even if these inefficiencies could (somehow) be completely eliminated, the organ shortage would still persist.     

Prices and industrial transformation

Abstract

One of the contradictions of neo-classical economic theory concerns its view of relative prices. On the one hand it is relative prices that determine the market's equilibrium position and decide what transactions will take place. On the other hand, the pattern of relative prices, or expressed differently the price structure, has been regarded as more or less immutable. Variations in relative prices have been considered short-term phenomena, after which, in time, an adaptation has taken place which has restored the initial situation. The same line of thought was also held by Wesley Mitchell, who in the dispersion of relative prices found a reflection of business cycles, but he maintained that the price system is “yet stable in the essential balance of its interrelations”.¹ F.C. Mills cited Mitchell as his authority in his comprehensive work The Behavior of Prices, and although he felt compelled to raise objections to the inference that relative prices varied rhythmically with the business cycle, he still considered that there was a limit to change in relative prices, i.e. the price structure had a fundamental stability.²     

Prices and Economic Change in Medieval Sweden

Abstract

The article explores relative price changes in medieval Sweden, with a focus on grain, beer, salt, oxen, butter, wax and iron. Supplementary data are provided on copper and hops. Most of these goods declined substantially in price relative to grain. The magnitude of the relative price shifts reflects technological and organisational change. Price cuts tended to be larger for goods that possessed a high knowledge content, such as iron, copper, and beer, or were involved in a more efficiently organised international trade, such as salt. This parallels the notion that north-western Europe, at least from the sixteenth century, developed a distinctive pattern of relative prices, with low prices of industrial goods and high prices of food. It is striking that Sweden, a peripheral economy of medieval Europe, exhibits these traits even before the sixteenth century. The great expansion of the European economy of the early modern period appears as a continuation of the innovations of the late medieval era.     

Employment and Prices in a Simple Macroeconomy

This exercise sets up interlinked labor and goods markets in a classroom macroeconomy. Students with worker roles are endowed with labor that can be consumed or sold to firms that post wages, purchase labor, and produce goods that can be either consumed or sold to workers. The money from sales is used by firms to purchase labor in the next period. Complicated record keeping is avoided by using ordinary playing cards to represent money and goods. The exercise can stimulate a discussion of potential output, unemployment, and the role of money in determining wages and prices. Use: This experiment can be used in introductory macroeconomics classes to teach concepts of the circular flow, real and money wages, unemployment, and labor market equilibrium and in intermediate classes to consider Keynesian and quantity theories. Time required: Fifteen minutes for reading instructions, 30 to 45 minutes for trading (depending on the number of periods), and 15 minutes for discussion. Materials: You will need one copy of the instructions for each person and one deck of ordinary playing cards for each replicated group of two workers and one firm. No money or other incentives are required.     

也说消费价格指数与房价

有分析人士认为，目前居民消费价格指数CPI的上涨幅度被低估，其原因是未将商品住宅价格指数纳入统计范围。本文认为，根据国际惯例编制的CPI已考虑了居民的居住消费，不将商品住宅价格指数纳入，是因其具有投资性质和金融资产性质；也可避免CPI因商品住宅价格的波动而出现的大幅波动，有利于客观分析和判断宏观经济的主要指标。