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The subject of this article is whether the financialisation of agricultural commodity futures trading contributed to the sudden price rises in 2006-2008. It also discusses the effect of financialisation on the functioning and usefulness of futures markets, and considers whether speculation could exacerbate price volatility again. The article is not intended to be an overly technical analysis of the topic and therefore does not include detailed economic analyses or econometric modelling. Rather, it seeks to provide an objective and straightforward discussion for those generally interested in agricultural commodity markets and their impact on food security and developing countries more generally.
Since the mid 2000s, an increasing financialization of commodity futures markets is taking place. This has fueled an ongoing discussion about the effect of financial investments on the development of commodity prices. Against this background, the trading activities of financial speculators also come to the fore. There is the concern that such speculators can cause irrational overshootings of agricultural commodity prices, e.g. in the event of global production shocks. In such an event the decrease of total supply induces a price surge menacing food security in developing countries. Yet, the question emerges whether speculation aggravates this price increase, eventually inducing a price bubble. The relevance of this concern is reinforced by the fact that due to climate change an increased frequency and severity of global agricultural production shortfalls is at stake. If speculation evokes an additional threat to food security in the event of a production shock, the political agenda should not be confined to focus solely on the adaptation to climate change. Instead, it is then also necessary to address speculative activities on agricultural commodity markets. This book scrutinises whether speculative bubbles can be identified in the event of severe global production shocks. For this, a framework for tracing the transmission of the futures price's development on the spot market is developed. Using annual data from 1979-2012 for maize it is analysed whether production shock related price bubbles occurred.
Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,0, University of Münster, language: English, abstract: This seminar paper reviews the literature on futures markets as well as the recent food crisis and presents an empirical investigation of the influence of (index) speculation on the corn price. My findings are in line with most of the other empirical conclusions that, rather than speculation, factors from the real and monetary economy played a role in the spike of commodity prices. For centuries, corn has been one of the most produced crops in the world, used to feed people, livestock and machines. During the last quarter of the twentieth-century, world food prices declined by more than 50 percent, thereby improving the nourishment of people all over the world. However, this extensive decline also raised calls for protectionist policies, aimed at defending the welfare of commodity producers. Starting in the early 2000s, all classes of commodities have experienced hefty price increases. The price for corn increased by more than 250 percent in roughly three years (2005-2008). The resulting food crisis devastated low-income communities around the globe, with the already large part of their income they spent on food becoming even more substantial, causing hunger and malnutrition. While a variety of explanations for this crisis have been offered, some were quick to blame excessive (index) speculation.
After declining for almost three decades, the food price index of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) rose by 90 percent between January 2002 and June 2008. Besides the magnitude, the rise in prices was remarkable for its breadth, affecting a broad range of commodities including agricultural (wheat, corn, soybeans, cocoa, coffee), energy (crude oil, gasoline), and metals (copper, aluminum). According to the US Department of Agriculture, this price spike was responsible for increasing the number of malnourished people by 80 million. These dramatic developments in prices coincided with a rapid inflow of investment into the commodities futures market -- the number of open contracts between 2001 and June 2008 increased by more than six-fold, from around 6 million to 37 million. The new investment was primarily driven by portfolio diversification motives of a new class of traders who were neither producers nor direct consumers of the underlying commodities. This dissertation examines the potential causal links between this financialization of the commodities futures market and the 2008 global spike in food prices and other commodities. The dissertation consists of three major chapters. The second chapter analyses the relationship between spot and futures markets for a range of commodities. The third and fourth chapters seek to understand the role of financialization in causing the 2008 price developments. Chapter 3 explores commodity markets individually, studying the correlation between the inflow of liquidity and price changes. Chapter 4 studies the issue at a more macro level by investigating if the inflow of investment can explain the increase in comovement of prices between unrelated commodities. My results show that i) for many commodities, prices are determined in the futures markets, and ii) financialization of the futures market was an important factor in causing the 2008 price rises for a range of commodities. These results underscore the increasingly important role of financial motive, financial markets, and financial instruments in the operation of the commodities market. The findings are especially relevant with respect to debates as to the relative efficiency of financial markets and the need to regulate them.
This paper elalobrates on the question whether speculative capital invested on commodity futures markets has an effect on staple food, on corn in particular, between 2006 and 2008. Effects as such amount to increasing prices for this type of grain, which may be the cause for the worldwide hunger crisis. Diese Studie geht der Frage nach, inwiefern Finanzspekulationen an den Warenterminbörsen für Grundnahrungsmittel, respektive Mais (corn), die weltweite Hungersnot zwischen 2006 und 2008 ausgelöst haben, bzw. eine Mitschuld daran tragen.
This book examines the issue of price volatility in agricultural commodities markets and how this phenomenon has evolved in recent years. The factors underlying the price spike of 2007-08 appear to be global and macroeconomic in nature, including the rapid growth in demand by developing countries, the international financial crisis, and exchange rate movements. Some of these factors are new, appearing as influences on price volatility only in the last decade. Although volatility has always been a feature of agricultural commodity markets, the evidence suggests that volatility has increased in certain commodity markets. A growing problem is that agricultural price shocks and volatility disrupt agricultural markets, economic incentives and incomes. With increased globalization and integration of financial and energy markets with agricultural commodity markets, the relationships between markets are expanding and becoming more complex. When a crisis such as a regional drought, food safety scare or a financial crisis hits a particular market, policy-makers often do not know the extent to which it will impact on other markets and affect producer, consumer and trader decisions. Including contributions from experts at the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the USDA, and the European Commission, the research developed throughout the chapters of this book is based on current methodologies that can be used to analyze price volatility and provide directions for understanding this volatility and the development of new agricultural policies. The book highlights the challenges facing policy makers in dealing with the changing nature of agricultural commodities markets, and offers recommendations for anticipating price movements and managing their consequences. It will be a practical guide for both present and future policy-makers in deciding on potential price-stabilizing interventions, and will also serve as a useful resource for researchers and students in agricultural economics.
Commodity futures prices exploded in 2007-2008 and concerns about a new type of speculative participant in commodity futures markets began to emerge. The main argument was that unprecedented buying pressure from new "commodity index" investors created massive bubbles that resulted in prices substantially exceeding fundamental value. At the time, it was not uncommon to link concerns about speculation and high prices to world hunger, food crises, and civil unrest. Naturally, this outcry resulted in numerous regulatory proposals to restrict speculation in commodity futures markets. This book presents important research on the impact of index investment on commodity futures prices that the authors conducted over the last fifteen years. The eleven articles presented in the book follow the timeline of our involvement in the world-wide debate about index funds as it evolved after 2007. We also include an introductory chapter, new author forewords for each article chapter, and a lessons learned chapter to round out the book. Policy-makers, researchers, and market participants will find the book not only functions as useful documentation of the debate; but, also as a natural starting point when high commodity prices inevitably create the next speculation backlash.
This book is a one-stop reference for practitioners and academics in finance, business and economics, providing a holistic reference to the international agriculture business. It takes a multidisciplinary approach, looking at the issues, opportunities and investable themes in the global agricultural space, combining research and practical tools.
Evidence continues to accumulate indicating that tax havens (as they are familiarly called) account for a staggering multi-trillion-dollar loss of tax revenues worldwide. Yet, as this crucially important book shows, such offshore financial centres (OFCs) represent merely the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of a massive malaise reaching into every corner of today’s global financial services landscape with the so-called New York-London axis at its root. In a biting critique and analysis of the tax and regulatory environments from which OFCs operate, the author demonstrates that OFC-like features exist in almost every jurisdiction as a virtually inevitable outcome of the transformation of economies worldwide over the past three decades, as nations and economic blocs compete for foreign investments, and as nations seek expansion of markets to accelerate growth. Covered aspects of this phenomenon include the following: the financialization process in global transactions; erosion of credibility in political establishments with regard to their ability to govern from the centre; ultralight regulatory enclaves found in parts of developed countries; public pressure demanding enhanced international cooperation and global tax reforms, now increasingly led by the US Biden administration, and increasingly likely to reach consensus among G7 economies; and momentum generated for reform of financial reporting systems by the leaked Panama and Paradise Papers, as well as the gathering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to growing government involvements in national and regional economies to protect the health and economic welfares of their respective populations. With its insights into why OFCs persist despite tightening of the rules regarding tax and financial transparency, and its insistence that the blameworthiness of large-scale tax avoidance should be assessed as a global tax problem requiring coordinated and collaborative response from both developing and advanced economies, this book takes a giant step towards genuine international tax reform. It will prove of enormous value to financial institutions, multinational corporations, tax experts, and lawmakers seeking to mend a world increasingly troubled by illicit financial flows, and problems posed by large individual and corporate tax escape artists. Disclaimer: This title is in pre-production and any names, credits or associations are subject to change. The current table of contents and subject matter is for pre-release sample purposes only.