Call for Papers
NBER Meeting on "Economics of Commodity Markets"
Kenneth Singleton and Wei Xiong, Organizers
In response to the rapidly changing landscape of commodity markets,
the National Bureau of Economic Research will hold a workshop to
discuss emerging issues in commodity markets and their implications
for finance, monetary economics, and macroeconomics on October 25-26,
2013 in Cambridge, MA.
The workshop will bring together economists from a variety of
subfields who share interests in the role of commodities in global
economic activity. Researchers from development economics, financial
economics, international trade, industrial organization,
macroeconomics, and other fields, can contribute to and benefit from
debate on the strengths and limitations of the extant literature and
on the pressing issues for future research.
The workshop will focus on a number of issues, including but not
restricted to:
The "financialization" of commodity futures markets. The
increasing recognition of commodities as an investment asset class
has attracted hundreds of billions of dollars of investments to this
asset class, and resulted in commodity futures markets becoming more
integrated with other financial markets and with each other. Have
these commodity-investment flows affected commodity prices? If so,
through which economic channels? Have the investment flows affected
the sharing of commodity price risk among commercial hedgers, index
investors, hedge funds, and other market participants?
The informational role of commodity prices. Commodity futures
markets aggregate the information and beliefs of producers,
consumers, and investors regarding the supply and demand of different
commodities. As a consequence, the futures prices of crude oil and
key industrial metals such as copper are widely used as indicators of
the economic strength of the world economy. Has the informational
role of commodity futures prices changed in the recent years? If so,
through this informational role, did trading in commodity futures
markets affect firm investment, the supply and demand of commodities,
or the hedging practices of commercial entities?
The global impact of commodity prices on inflation and economic
growth. The rise in commodity prices in the recent years has been a
source of inflationary pressure, especially in economies with high
food and energy shares in the consumption basket or with less firmly
anchored inflation expectations. What are the consequences of
various potential monetary policy responses to the inflationary
pressure induced by rising commodity prices? The commodity price
booms also imply significant challenges for macroeconomic policies,
especially in commodity-producing nations, as commodity price
fluctuations are often associated with macroeconomic
volatility. What policy instruments are available to governments
facing commodity price booms and busts, and what are the consequences
of their use?
Emerging economies and commodities. With the rapid growth in
many emerging economies, there has been rapid growth in demand for
commodities. Concurrently, natural resource-rich countries have
experienced large increases in exports of commodities. Have these
developments led to an increased sensitivity of commodity markets to
economic fluctuations and policy changes in emerging economies? As
commodity futures markets are commonly used as an indirect yet liquid
channel to invest in emerging economies, did speculation about the
growth of emerging economies impact trading and pricing in commodity markets?
Selection Process
Preference will be given to papers that are well developed yet can
still benefit from group discussion. Submissions from researchers
early in their careers, and from researchers who are not NBER
affiliates, are encouraged.
The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2013. We will notify only
those who are chosen as presenters or discussants. The NBER will
cover the domestic travel and hotel expenses for one author per paper
as well as for discussants and panelists at the conference, subject
to NBER travel regulations.
Please submit any paper that you would like to be considered for the
workshop by August 15 through the following link:
http://papers.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfp?id=CWf13
Received on Wed Aug 14 2013 - 10:00:49 EDT
