Dynamic linkages in agricultural and energy markets: A quantile impulse response approach

Abstract

This article investigates the dynamic linkages between agricultural and energy markets, with a focus on an econometric analysis of multivariate stochastic dynamics based on the joint distribution of state variables. The analysis relies on a quantile approach followed by the evaluation of a copula. Applied to nonlinear price dynamics, the approach is flexible and supports a general evaluation of impulse response functions representing how prices adjust over time and across markets in response to a given shock. The analysis allows for arbitrary distribution functions; it captures own-price and cross-price dynamics that can depend on the nature of shocks; and it also allows current changes to affect all moments of the future price distributions. The usefulness of the approach is illustrated in an econometric investigation of dynamic linkages in US corn, ethanol, and crude oil markets. We show how price adjustments can vary across quantiles, reflecting different speeds of adjustments depending on market conditions. We find evidence of nonlinear dynamics specific to the tails of the price distributions. We uncover evidence of positive contemporaneous codependence, especially tail dependence. We show how price shocks affect mean, variance, skewness as well as kurtosis of future price distributions. These results stress the importance of going beyond a standard mean-variance analysis. They also shed new light on the deep linkages existing in the food-fuel nexus.