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This paper considers the issue of whether shocks to ten commodity prices (gold, silver, platinum, copper, aluminum, iron ore, lead, nickel, tin, and zinc) are persistent or transitory. We use two recently developed unit root tests, namely the Narayan and Popp (NP) [14] test and the Liu and Narayan (LN) [26] test. Both tests allow for two structural breaks in the data series. Using the NP test, we are able to reject the unit root null for iron ore and tin. Using the GARCH-based unit root test of LN, we are able to reject the unit root null for five commodity prices (iron ore, nickel, zinc, lead, and tin). Our findings, thus, suggest that only shocks to gold, silver, platinum, aluminum, and copper are persistent.
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In several countries biodiesel blending programs have been implemented looking for reduction in fossil fuel dependence and environmental benefits, including climate change mitigation. The current global biodiesel production, from different fatty raw materials, reaches about 6 billion liters per year and represents 10% of whole biofuel production. Nevertheless, in many cases the actual advantages of biodiesel production and usage are not clearly evaluated. Essentially, the feasibility of biodiesel production can be determined by its efficiency in solar energy conversion, as indicated by agro-industrial productivity and energy balance parameters, which expresses a relative demand of natural resources (land and energy)...
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Even though significant attempts have appeared in literature, the current perception of co-movement of commodity prices appear inadequate and static. In particular we focus on price movements between crude oil futures and a series of agricultural commodities and gold futures. A comparative framework is applied to identify changes in relationships through time and various cointegration methodologies and causality tests are employed. Our results indicate that co-movement is a dynamic concept and that some economic and policy development may change the relationship between commodities. Furthermore we show that biofuel policy buffers the co-movement of crude oil and corn futures until the crude oil prices surpass a...
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