CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020011
Fjona Zeneli
{"title":"Energy and Grains Prices Cointegration and Causality Linkage","authors":"Fjona Zeneli","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020011","url":null,"abstract":"Energy and grain markets are historically connected since oil, natural gas, and/or coal are used as inputs for fertilizers’ production or transportation costs. The recent rising prices in the energy market following important events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have again brought attention to researchers. The focus of this paper is to assess any changes in the relationships between crude oil, natural gas, and grain prices contributing to the review of the fuel-food relationship using time series models. Several techniques that account for structural breaks and regime shifts (Zivot-Andrews and Clemente, Montañés, Reyes unit root tests, Johansen’s cointegration test, and Toda-Yamamoto time domain causality test with time dummy variables for structural breaks, and Hatemi-J asymmetric causality test) are applied for monthly data covering the period from January 1982 to September 2022. The main result is that the neutrality hypothesis is still valid in light of recent developments in the respective markets (no significant linear causality and asymmetric causality were detected among the series).","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"284 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122266787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-11-11DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020010
M. Sterie, I. Petre, Iulia Bianca Bogos
{"title":"The Influence of Ukraine’s Foreign Grain Trade through Romania on Prices","authors":"M. Sterie, I. Petre, Iulia Bianca Bogos","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020010","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of the present research was to determine the external influence of the grain trade, i.e., the influence of Ukraine’s grain trade through Romania on price levels recorded at Romania’s borders. The research methods to achieve this objective consisted of quantitative and qualitative analyses of wheat and maize imports and export data from the beginning of 2022 to the present, as well as using the t-stat test to determine the existence of significant price differences, and the linear regression model. The research results confirm that there were differences between the two pre- and post-military conflict periods regarding the volume of imports from Ukraine and the increase in the supply of wheat and maize from Romania, through this trade activity, led to changes in prices.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134431302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-11-10DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020009
Tayyba Rashad, K. Zaman, H. Khan, A. Rashid
{"title":"Evaluating the Economic and Environmental Repercussions of the Price Paradox in Natural Resource Commodities: Market Drivers and Potential Challenges for Sustainable Development","authors":"Tayyba Rashad, K. Zaman, H. Khan, A. Rashid","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020009","url":null,"abstract":"The natural resource commodity price paradox is a phenomenon that has been observed in the past. The price of a commodity constantly and unpredictably fluctuates. This phenomenon makes it difficult for businesses to plan for future needs and investments. This study examined the relationship between natural resource commodity prices, renewable energy demand, economic growth, high-technology exports, inbound FDI, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Pakistan, using the 1975 to 2020 time period. The robust least squares (RLS) regression results showed that natural resource commodity prices and economic growth increased GHG emissions. In contrast, there was a negative relationship between renewable energy demand (and high-tech exports) and GHG emissions in Pakistan. The results verified the resource price curse hypothesis and growth-associated emissions in a country. The Granger causality estimates showed the unidirectional relationship of renewable energy consumption with GHG emissions, natural resource pricing, and inbound FDI. Further, high-technology exports Granger caused GHG emissions and GDP per capita. The results verified the country’s growth-led green energy sources and inbound FDI, resource pricing-led inbound FDI, and GHG emissions-led resource pricing. The impulse response function suggested that resource commodity pricing and the country’s economic growth will likely increase GHG emissions in the next ten years. At the same time, green energy demand, technological advancements, and sustainable investment in cleaner production would help decrease GHG emissions over time. The variance decomposition analysis suggested that technology advancements would likely have greater variance shock on GHG emissions, followed by commodity resource pricing and green energy demand. The resource price paradox hampers economic and environmental outcomes, which need to be resolved through advancement in cleaner production technologies, adoption of green energy demand, and stabilization of resource commodity pricing that helps to move forward toward the sustainable development of the country.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127890622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020008
Mohammad Zohaib Saeed, Shankar Ghimire
{"title":"Environmental Effects of Commodity Trade vs. Service Trade in Developing Countries","authors":"Mohammad Zohaib Saeed, Shankar Ghimire","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020008","url":null,"abstract":"Increasing levels of carbon emissions have been a growing concern worldwide because of their adverse environmental effects. In that context, this paper examines the association between different categories of trade and carbon dioxide emissions. In particular, we analyze whether total trade, commodity trade, and service trade affect the environment differently. The analysis is based on panel data for 147 developing countries for the period from 1960 to 2020. Methodologically, the fixed-effects model, as suggested by the Hausman test, is used to examine the relationships. We present two main conclusions: (1) overall trade increases CO2 emissions, and (2) commodity trade contributes to higher levels of CO2 emissions than service trade. These results have important policy implications—climate change policies should target commodity trade sectors to help reduce environmental carbon emissions.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122058195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-10-31DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020007
N. Domingues
{"title":"Lithium Prospection in Portugal for E-Mobility and Solar PV Expansion","authors":"N. Domingues","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020007","url":null,"abstract":"Lithium has emerged as a key commodity in the clean energy transition, with demand for the mineral set to soar as low-carbon technologies grow more advanced and widely deployed. Under the motto of the energy transition and a decarbonization of the economy, governments and mining industries seek agreements for the granting of prospecting licenses around the World, defining then the ones that will extend to exploration. New investments in photovoltaic solar exploitations, research in the fields of secondary batteries, thermonuclear power generation, and the fever of the electric car are some of the main uses and exerts pressure regarding the availability, in sufficient quantities, of lithium. Consequently, concern over environmental impacts and undefined local social benefits are alarming residents in rural areas and non-governmental organizations. Therefore, the concern for the environmental impacts and the undefined local social benefits are alarming residents in rural areas and non-governmental organizations. This article reflects on the situation in Portugal, making an economic, energic, environmental and social balance. The article uses the international experience to strengthen the study. In the absence of case studies in Portugal, an analogy with quarry exploitation will be used, whose impacts are similar. The present paper explains why Portugal is currently the key country for lithium exploration in the world, despite it being 7th in the world with regard to lithium reserves. Taking into consideration all parts and the best practices in the world, and if environmental and social concerns are resolved, mining is a good opportunity for Portugal as a Country and for the local population at risk of desertification areas, in the author’s opinion.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121401354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-10-27DOI: 10.3390/commodities1020006
Zar Shah, K. Zaman, H. Khan, A. Rashid
{"title":"The Economic Value of Natural Resources and Its Implications for Pakistan’s Economic Growth","authors":"Zar Shah, K. Zaman, H. Khan, A. Rashid","doi":"10.3390/commodities1020006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1020006","url":null,"abstract":"Natural resources and ecological services provide the foundation for manufactured capital, increasing public financing and decreasing inequality by diversifying the economy. The exploitation of natural resources is frequently the backbone of economic stability in developing and middle-income nations. As a result of their importance, natural resources need vigilant and long-term management. Recent research has tested two hypotheses, the natural resource blessing hypothesis and the natural resource curse hypothesis, on the impact of a country’s natural resources on its economy. This research is an essential contribution to the growing body of work that attempts to quantify natural resource endowments’ role in national economic growth. Investigations focus on Pakistan and span the years 1975 through 2020. Robust Least Square (RLS) estimations show that coal rents, energy use, inbound FDI, and oil rents contribute to a country’s economic growth. While consumption of renewable energy sources and industrial value-added have a detrimental effect. Natural resources, foreign direct investment, energy consumption, and industrial ecology are predicted to significantly impact economic growth during the next decade, according to the Impulse Response Function (IRF) and the Variance Decomposition Analysis (VDA). The findings may provide helpful information for academic and governmental institutions to develop natural resource management policies for sustainable development.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124722207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-09-12DOI: 10.3390/commodities1010005
Jaime R. Marquez
{"title":"Oil Prices and Exchange Rates: Measurement Matters","authors":"Jaime R. Marquez","doi":"10.3390/commodities1010005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1010005","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the relevancy of price measurement for characterizing the relation between real oil prices and real exchange rates. The current empirical literature shows a consensus on using the U.S. CPI to deflate the nominal oil price simply because of its numerous advantages. However, reliance on the U.S. CPI assumes that the worldwide alternative to a barrel of oil is the U.S. consumption basket. There are, however, alternative baskets, and I consider two: the price of gold and the IMF Global Commodity Price Index. Inspection of the results reveals that the relation between real oil prices and real exchange rates is sensitive to the choice of deflator for the price of oil and to the use of effective or bilateral exchange rates. Specifically, using the IMF’s Global Commodity Price Index as a deflator reveals that real oil prices and real exchange rates (effective or bilateral) are clustered along a long-run relation with unitary elasticity. Further, this choice of deflator has the lowest forecast errors. To be sure, much work remains to be completed along the lines of measurement and estimation methods. However, extending the results of this paper will emphasize its main point—namely, that measurement matters.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131053586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-08-25DOI: 10.3390/commodities1010004
Kokulo K. Lawuobahsumo, Bernardina Algieri, Leonardo Iania, A. Leccadito
{"title":"Exploring Dependence Relationships between Bitcoin and Commodity Returns: An Assessment Using the Gerber Cross-Correlation","authors":"Kokulo K. Lawuobahsumo, Bernardina Algieri, Leonardo Iania, A. Leccadito","doi":"10.3390/commodities1010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1010004","url":null,"abstract":"We use a robust measure of non-linear dependence, the Gerber cross-correlation statistic, to study the cross-dependence between the returns on Bitcoin and a set of commodities, namely wheat, gold, platinum and crude oil WTI. The Gerber statistic enables us to obtain a more robust co-movement measure since it is neither affected by extremely large nor small movements that characterise financial time series; thus, it strips out noise from the data and allows us to capture effective co-movements between series when the movements are “substantial”. Focusing on the period 2014–2022, we construct the bootstrapped confidence intervals for the Gerber statistic and test the null that all the Gerber cross-correlations up to lag kmax are zero. Our results indicate a low degree of dependence between Bitcoin and commodities prices, both when we consider contemporaneous correlation and when we employ correlations between current Bitcoin and lagged (one day, one week, or one month) commodities returns. Further, the cross-correlation between Bitcoin and commodities’ returns, although scanty, shows an increasing trend during periods of economic, health and financial turbulence. This increased cross-correlation of returns during hectic market periods could be due to the contagion effect of some markets by others, which could also explain the strong dependence across volatilities we detected. Based on our results, Bitcoin cannot be considered the “new digital gold”.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123649401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-06-21DOI: 10.3390/commodities1010002
L. Smales
{"title":"Trading Behavior in Agricultural Commodity Futures around the 52-Week High","authors":"L. Smales","doi":"10.3390/commodities1010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1010002","url":null,"abstract":"Utilizing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitment of Traders report, we examine the behavior of traders in three large agricultural futures markets (corn, soybean, and wheat) when prices are at a key technical trading level—the 52-week high (the highest price during the past year). Our empirical results confirm that, consistent with hedging behavior, commercial traders tend to be negative feedback traders, while non-commercial traders tend to be momentum traders. In both cases, there is a moderating effect when the market is at the 52-week high. For non-commercial traders, this effect is concentrated in short positions. Although we find no evidence of a broad market timing ability from any trader type, trader positions appear to be more informative when the market is at the 52-week high. Our results have implications for traders attempting to time market entry.","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"16 6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126962289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CommoditiesPub Date : 2022-05-19DOI: 10.3390/commodities1010001
Jungho Baek
{"title":"Commodities—Open Access Journal on Commodities","authors":"Jungho Baek","doi":"10.3390/commodities1010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1010001","url":null,"abstract":"We are very pleased to announce the launch of the new open-access journal, Commodities (ISSN: 2813-2432) [...]","PeriodicalId":377639,"journal":{"name":"Commodities","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115560814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}