Placing the 2006/08 Commodity Price Boom into Perspective
The 2006-08 commodity price boom was one of the longest and broadest of the post-World War II period. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the recent boom was fueled by numerous factors, including low past investment in extractive commodities, weak dollar, fiscal expansion, and lax monetary policy in many countries, and investment fund activity. At the same time, the combination of adverse weather conditions, the diversion of some food commodities to the production of biofuels, and government policies (including export bans and prohibitive taxes) brought global stocks of many food commodities down to levels not seen since the early 1970s. This in turn accelerated the price increases that eventually led to the 2008 rally. The weakening and/or reversal of these factors coupled with the financial crisis that erupted in September 2008 and the subsequent global economic downturn, induced sharp price declines across most commodity sectors. Yet, the main price indices are still twice as high compared to their 2000 real levels, begging once more the question about the real factors affecting them. This paper concludes that a stronger link between energy and non-energy commodity prices is likely to be the dominant influence on developments in commodity, and especially food, markets. Demand by emerging economies is unlikely to put additional pressure on the prices of food commodities. The paper also argues that the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by financial investors (the so-called "financialization of commodities") may have been partly responsible for the 2007/08 spike. Finally, econometric analysis of the long-term evolution of commodity prices supports the thesis that price variability overwhelms price trends.
| Summary: | The 2006-08 commodity price boom was one
of the longest and broadest of the post-World War II period.
Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the recent
boom was fueled by numerous factors, including low past
investment in extractive commodities, weak dollar, fiscal
expansion, and lax monetary policy in many countries, and
investment fund activity. At the same time, the combination
of adverse weather conditions, the diversion of some food
commodities to the production of biofuels, and government
policies (including export bans and prohibitive taxes)
brought global stocks of many food commodities down to
levels not seen since the early 1970s. This in turn
accelerated the price increases that eventually led to the
2008 rally. The weakening and/or reversal of these factors
coupled with the financial crisis that erupted in September
2008 and the subsequent global economic downturn, induced
sharp price declines across most commodity sectors. Yet, the
main price indices are still twice as high compared to their
2000 real levels, begging once more the question about the
real factors affecting them. This paper concludes that a
stronger link between energy and non-energy commodity prices
is likely to be the dominant influence on developments in
commodity, and especially food, markets. Demand by emerging
economies is unlikely to put additional pressure on the
prices of food commodities. The paper also argues that the
effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as
originally thought, but that the use of commodities by
financial investors (the so-called "financialization of
commodities") may have been partly responsible for the
2007/08 spike. Finally, econometric analysis of the
long-term evolution of commodity prices supports the thesis
that price variability overwhelms price trends. |
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