No abstract

The behavior of commodities is critical for developing and developed countries alike. This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on the co-movement and determinants of commodity prices. Using nonstationary panel methods, we document a statistically significant degree of co-movement due to a common factor. Within a Factor Augmented VAR approach, real interest rate and uncertainty, as postulated by a simple asset pricing model, are both found to be negatively related to this common factor. This evidence is robust to the inclusion of demand and supply shocks, which both positively impact on the co-movement of commodity prices.

In this paper we assess the impact of a comprehensive range of macroeconomic and financial measures of uncertainty on business investment in the major industrial countries using Pooled Mean Group Panel Estimation. We discover a significant negative long run effect from both nominal and real exchange rate volatility using a GARCH (1,1) approach on aggregate investment for the G7. This is also found in poolable subgroups including all four larger European countries. Results for an adverse impact of uncertainty on investment are also found for volatility of long rates in recent years but not for inflation, share prices and industrial production. The results imply that to the extent that EMU favours lower exchange rate and long interest rate volatility, it will also be beneficial to investment.

We examine the relationship between aggregate investment and exchange rate uncertainty in the G7, using panel estimation and decomposition of volatility derived from the components generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroscedastic (GARCH) model. Our dynamic panel approach takes account of potential cross-sectional heterogeneity, which can lead to bias in estimation. We find that for a poolable subsample of European countries, it is the transitory and not the permanent component of volatility which adversely affects investment. To the extent that short-run uncertainty in the CGARCH model characterizes higher frequency shocks generated by volatile short-term capital flows, these are most deleterious for investment.

In this paper we consider the impact of exchange rate volatility on the volume of bilateral US trade (both exports and imports) using sectoral data. Amongst the novelties in our approach are the use of sectoral industrial price indices, rather than an aggregate price index, and the construction of the sectoral groupings, which is based on economic and econometric criteria. We find that separating trade into differentiated goods and homogeneous goods results in the most appropriate sectoral division, and we also report evidence to suggest that exchange rate volatility has a robust and significantly negative effect across sectors, although it is strongest for exports of differentiated goods.