Algirdas Justinas Staugaitis, Česlovas Christauskas
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Research background: The study analyzes whether financial speculation destabilizes commodity prices in light of recent price volatility and spikes in agricultural commodities. The study delves deeper into the US dairy futures markets, which are less studied by other authors in their research and relatively new in comparison to other agricultural commodity markets. These dairy commodity futures contracts provide dairy businesses and farmers the chance to hedge against price risks, which are particularly crucial in uncertain economic times such as the post-2020 COVID-19 pandemic timeframe. The analysis makes use of the weekly returns on futures contracts for nonfat milk powder, butter, milk class III, and cheese that are obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Purpose of the article: Conduct an empirical study to evaluate the effect of financial speculation on dairy product prices on US commodity markets, including the post-2020 timeframe. Methods: Time series analysis is used in the investigation: the generalized auto-regressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) method, the Granger causality test, and the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. Findings & value added: Our analysis's findings show that, even though most commodities experienced an increase in return volatility during the post-2020 period, there is no evidence for financial speculation being the cause of increased returns from dairy futures contracts. The research also suggests that financial speculation, in some cases, even lowers the volatility of dairy futures prices. Therefore, non-commercial market participants may help to distribute price risks, making these markets more liquid.
期刊介绍:
Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy is a scientific journal dedicated to economics, which is the result of close cooperation between the Instytut Badań Gospodarczych/Institute of Economic Research (Poland) and Polish Economic Society and leading European universities. The journal constitutes a platform for exchange of views of the scientific community, as well as reflects the current status and trends of world science and economy.
The journal especially welcome empirical articles making use of quantitative methods in: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, International Economics, Financial Economics and Banking, Public Economics, Business Economics, Labor and Demographic Economics, Economic Development, and Technological Change, and Growth.
Current most preferable topics and special issues:
The economics of artificial intelligence: business potentials and risks;
Digitalization and entrepreneurship in economics;
Sustainable socio-economic development, environmental and ecological economics;
Transition in the energy market (improving energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, renewable energy, energy security).