Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
MSc DISSERTATION
L14100
Investigating the Long Run Relationship Between
Crude Oil and Food Commodity Prices
Submitted by:
ABHISHEK GOGOI
4164241
MSc Economic Development and Policy Analysis.
Supervisor:
Dr. Marta Aloi.
This Dissertation is presented in part fulfillment of the requirement for the completion of an MSc in
the School of Economics, University of Nottingham. The work is the sole responsibility of the
candidate
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ABSTRACT
Crude oil price is believed to be one of the factors that affect food commodity prices. It is an
agricultural production input, therefore the prices of fertilizer, fuel and transportation are affected by
the crude oil prices directly, and subsequently they influence the production of grain commodities.
There is another dimension to how oil prices can affect food commodity prices, and it is from the
derived demand for biofuels. With rising oil prices, demand for biofuels increase and the production
of these fuel is highly dependent on the availability of agricultural feed stocks. So it is primarily
because of the above two dynamics that I want to investigate if there is a long term relationship
between crude oil prices and food commodity prices.
This is an important issue in present times because of the rising prices and volatility in the oil and
food commodity markets. I will try to examine if there exist a cointegrating relationship between
crude oil price and food commodity price for the period between 1980 to 2011. The food
commodities selected are maize, rice, soybean and wheat. Time Series econometric techniques were
applied to find our results. The Engle-Granger Co-integration test revealed that there is long run
relationship between crude oil prices and maize, soybean, wheat. But, rice prices were not found to
be cointegrated. I also carried out the traditional Granger Causality test to check whether causality
exist between the two prices. We find that there is unidirectional causality, with only crude oil prices
Granger causing each of the four food commodity prices. The reverse was not true, as crude oil
prices were not found to be influenced by price of food commodities. So from our results we can
confirm the significance of oil prices and the impact it has on the food commodity prices.
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction 6
2. Fundamentals 9
3. Literature Review 11
4. Data 13
5. Methodology 15
6. Empirical Results and Analysis 24
6.1 Augmented Dickey Fuller Unit Root test
6.2 Co-integration Analysis
6.3 Short-run Analysis: Error Correction Model
6.4 Causality test
7. Conclusion 33
Bibliography 34
Appendix 36
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1. INTRODUCTION
Food prices have been very volatile in the most recent years, reaching peak levels in 2008 and then
declining sharply but to rise again in 2010. Figure 1 shows the monthly price indices from January
2000 until May 2011, and it illustrates the evolution of the various agricultural food commodity
prices over this period. The 2008 commodity price boom was one of the broadest and it did receive a
lot of attention all over the world. As food commodity prices were reaching very high levels, it raised
questions about the factors causing this hike and breaking the price stability that was continuing for
the previous 10 to 15 years. Between January 2006 and March 2008, food commodities on average
underwent an increase of 62%, amongst which rice prices being the most notable; with prices
doubling within just five months of 2008, from US $375 per tonne in January to US $757 per tonne
in June (IMF, 2008). Soon after reaching peak, there was a rapid decline in the prices. But by 2011,
the prices of maize (corn), soybeans and wheat returned to their peak levels of 2008. This amplitude
of price movements over a particular period of time has been at its highest level in the past 50 years
and it asks many questions with regard to the causes of this price volatility.
One interesting feature in the figure below is the trend of the commodity prices. Does it appear that
the spikes in the prices of crude oil are of a similar trend to those of the commodity prices (especially
during the 2007-09 period)? In recent years, crude oil prices have escalated to record levels, peaking
at US $133 per barrel in July 2008. It is understood that among the various factors that affect
agricultural commodity prices, crude oil prices is one element that plays an important role.
Figure 1: Monthly Agricultural Commodity Prices, 2000-2011
Note: Monthly commodity prices are expressed as an index equal to 1 on average in 2002.
Source: IMF, 2011
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On the supply side, with increase in crude oil prices, it pushes up crop production cost and which
results in grain price increase. (Baffes J, 2007) indicated that the crude oil price should be included in
the aggregate production function for most primary agricultural commodities through the use of
various energy-intensive inputs. For instance, the prices of fertilizer, fuel, and transportation were
found to be affected by the crude oil price directly and subsequently influenced the production of
grain commodities.
Then on the demand side, grain commodities are competing with the derived demand for bio-fuels.
With rising fuel prices, governments are taking steps to increase plantation of energy crops (eg.
maize) by providing generous subsidies. Therefore, larger and larger share of maize production is
being used to produce biofuels, partly as a substitute to petroleum. As a result, they strengthen the
link between the two markets- crude oil and of the agricultural products used in production of
biofuels. So we can see how the two sectors are related and it is on this topic that I will try to
investigate if there exist a long term relationship between crude oil prices and the selected food
commodities.
An important discussion with regard to the the linkages between crude oil and the food commodity
markets, is the question regarding the food and energy issue. The Food Versus Fuel Debate, was
the title of the August 2009 issue of Journal of Agriculture and Applied Economics and this heading
hits the focal point of the discussion. We live in a world that is thirsty for energy but at the same
time, there is concern about the long term sustainability of this energy-intensive lifestyle that the
industrialised world has developed. Oil reserves are being exhausted and at the same time there is
increasing demand for energy from economies to fulfill their growing needs. With rising oil prices
and also growing environmental concerns, there is a call for finding alternatives, and biofuels is
leading the way in this new direction. The European Union, the United States and other major
agricultural production countries have all been encouraging biofuels by implementing production
subsidy and setting mandates to encourage farmers to plant energy crops. The farmers are complying
with these mandates by diverting agricultural land to producing energy crops. For example, in 2007
the US diverted more than 30 per cent of its maize production, Brazil used half of its sugarcane
production and the European Union used the greater part of its vegetable oil seeds production as well
as imported vegetable oils, to make biofuel. So is this the new measure of meeting our energy needs,
by diverting crop and land away from traditional use to non-food use? Another question attached to
this is whether the increase in biofuel crops is affecting other food crop prices. There are a few
studies that find significant effects of biofuel prices on agricultural commodity prices. Roberts and
Schlenker (2010) estimate the impact of United States biofuel production alone on world prices of
maize, rice, soybeans and wheat to be about 30 per cent.
The world faces a new food economy that most likely involves higher and more volatile food prices,
as we are seeing in recent years. High food prices lead to either spending more money on food
purchases or making cutbacks on the quantity or quality of food. It definitely makes an impact and
especially on poorer households who get most affected. There is also broad agreement among
policymakers that food commodity price hike brings inflation risk that could spill into expectations
for further price increases, demand for higher wages and thereby an increase in underlying inflation
(second-round effects). Along with the high prices, price volatility too has significant effects on food
producers and consumers. Producers can be affected with greater potential losses, with price changes
that are larger and faster to what they can adjust. It is a big problem because uncertainty about prices
make it more difficult for farmers to make sounds decisions about how and what to produce. It
will make them more cautious and may also prevent them from making investments in areas that can
improve productivity. Subsequently there will be reductions in supply and this could lead to higher
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prices, which as a result will hurt consumers. Hence, it is very important that food prices remain
stable. However, the prices of the recent years have been quite the contrary and it leads to questions
about the causes of this food price volatility. Despite the differences in views among economist, it
is commonly assumed that there are a few causes, which I will discuss in the following section. But
among which, Oil Prices is one key element. It is on this topic that I will try to establish if there is a
long-run relationship between crude oil prices and food commodity prices, using the Engle-Granger
Co-integration test (two-step method). A traditional Granger Causality test will also be used to check
whether one price Granger causes the other.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, I will discuss the factors which are commonly
assumed to be responsible in driving food commodity prices. Section 3 is the Literature Review,
where I will briefly summarize the existing literature on this topic. Section 4 is the introduction to the
Data followed by Section 5 where I will explain the econometric methodology that I will be using to
carry out my empirical tests. In Section 6 I will present and analyze the results. Finally, I will
conclude in the last section.
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2. FUNDAMENTALS
In this section, I will discuss the factors which are commonly assumed to be responsible in driving
food commodity prices. We will examine the contribution of each of the factors and the role it played
in the recent price developments. Agricultural commodity prices have been rising since 2002 and
increasing sharply from 2007.The rise in food commodity prices was led by cereals, where from
January 2005 until June 2008, maize prices almost tripled, wheat prices increased 127 percent and
rice prices increased 170 percent (Mitchell 2008). This was then followed by increases in fats and
vegetable oil prices. So the factors that contributed to the rise in the food commodity prices are:
MACROECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
Macroeconomic forces like declining US $ exchange rates and real interest rates are believed to be
key factors in the rise in commodity prices; the latter also leading to wave of speculation which
causes short-run price rise. The exchange rate was identified by many analysts as one of the key
factors in explaining the high commodity prices of 2008. In 2002, a Euro cost US$ 0.90 and when the
dollar was weakest in mid-2008, an Euro cost nearly US$ 1.60. A weak dollar means commodity
prices seem less expensive for those countries whose currencies have appreciated relative to the
dollar, so it may lead to increased demand and thereby exert price pressures. Statistical analysis has
shown that the depreciation of the dollar increases dollar commodity prices on average with an
elasticity between 0.5 and 1.0 (Gilbert 1989; Baffes 1997). Using an elasticity of 0.75, about 15
percent of the recent increase in agricultural commodity prices can be attributed to the decline of the
U.S. dollar (Mitchell 2008).
A weak dollar, inflationary expectations and economic recovery are factors that have led to
financialization of commodity markets, and there have been increased investment in commodities
by institutional investors wanting to diversify their portfolios. This financialization is often thought
to have affected commodity price behaviour. Another view shared is that these prices are largely
driven by speculators and herd behaviour among investors looking for alternative asset classes. The
low interest rates that were supported by the central banks resulted in excess liquidity, which too
made their way to the commodity markets.
FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY AND DEMAND
With rising world population there is an increased demand for grain. A big factor for this increased
demand is because of the emerging economies and their dietary changes with income growth. As
incomes per head rise in countries like China and India, there has been a structural shift in their
demand for grain and their consumption patterns are changing. There is a rise in meat consumption
and as a result of which, there is more demand for animal feeds. Between 1995 and 2005, world meat
consumption rose by 15 per cent, East and Southeast Asia being the region with the highest increase
at almost 50 per cent (FAO,2009). There has been increased oilseed demand and higher oilseed
prices as China increased soybean imports for its livestock and poultry industry. On the Supply side,
both China and India have been net grain exporters since 2000, although exports have declined as
consumption has increased (Mitchell 2008).
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SUPPLY SHOCKS
Adverse weather and crop diseases have played a significant role in reduced crop production and
thereby leading to reductions in the inventories in 2010-11. World total grain production dropped
2.3% or 51 million metric tonne in 2010-11 from the previous year (USDA). These large reductions
were largely caused as a result of harmful weather in the Black Sea Region, Canada and Australia.
With reduced production, governments take policy actions such as increased taxes or export bans
which lead to higher prices.
HIGHER OIL PRICES
The increase in oil prices have a two-fold effect on crop prices. On the supply side, with increase in
crude oil prices, it pushes up crop production cost with relation to higher fertilizer, chemicals and
transportation costs; thereby resulting in grain price increase. On the demand side, grain commodities
are competing with the derived demand for bio-fuels. With rising fuel prices, governments are taking
steps to increase plantation of energy crops (eg. maize) by providing generous subsidies, and the
farmers are complying with these mandates by diverting agricultural land to producing energy crops.
This as a result is not only leading to reduced food productions but also affecting food prices. For
example, growing biodiesel production in Europe has indirectly exacerbated price rises in the wheat
market, because land which would otherwise have been used for growing wheat has been diverted to
oilseed production (Mitchell, 2008).A recent study by UNCTAD (2009) estimates that, due to
blending requirements in many countries, demand for biofuels will rise much faster than production
capacity. In addition, with subsidized biofuel prices, it implies that biofuel production has zero
elasticity with respect to changes in feed prices. Therefore it seems plausible that enhanced biofuel
production will have some effect on maize prices and also on the prices of other grains such as
barley, rice and wheat via the substitution effect.
There are a few studies that find significant effects of biofuel prices on agricultural commodity
prices. Roberts and Schlenker (2010) estimate the impact of United States biofuel production alone
on world prices of maize, rice, soybeans and wheat to be about 30 per cent. However, there are also
several other studies which dont quite agree to this idea that biofuel prices can have a serious impact
on food commodity prices. Baffes and Haniotis (2010) say that it is highly unlikely that biofuel
production prompted the recent agricultural commodity price spikes, given the small share of land
used for biofuels compared to global land used for grain and oilseed production.
POLICY RESPONSES
International trade is a mechanism by which countries adjust to production and demand shocks. But
when food prices increased in 2007-08, countries altered trade policies to isolate and partially
stabilize their domestic markets from effects of those high prices. Countries use various measures
such as subsidise food prices, decreased taxes or decreased import tariffs. But the measure that was
mostly used was export restrictions. But each of the policy actions only fuel the price increase even
further by either restricting access to supplies (with export restrictions) or by increasing demand for
product (with subsidies). Hence, even if countries take policy measures to shield the domestic
market, the outcome will be self-defeating if all countries take the same measures. An example of the
impact these bans have is exemplified by how Thailands rice export price skyrocketed after India
banned rice exports in October, 2007. Export markets for main staple commodities are concentrated
in a few countries and if they restrict exports, it immediately affects global prices.
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3. LITERATURE REVIEW
The attempts to examine the long term relationship between crude oil prices and food commodity
prices is relatively new, as this topic grabbed attention prominently only during the 2008 food price
crisis. Almost all the studies on this topic were inspired post the fuel and food price hike in 2008. In
present times, issues related to commodity markets are quite common. Indeed there is no day when
daily financial newspapers do not dedicate columns to commodity related issues, from gold to wheat,
rice and maize; while an unprecedented rise in oil prices has inflamed all markets (Geman, 2005).
It is well documented that food commodity prices are dependent on various factors, among which
crude oil price is an important element. With rising fuel prices, there is incentive to use food crops
for producing biofuel energy. But increased food production expenditure is not adding up to more
food available for traditional use and consequently increasing food prices around the word (Von
Braun and Pachauri, 2006). There is a very interesting inter-dependence between the two markets,
but is there a long term relationship between the two? There are studies that attempted to examine
this relationship and there have been varied results.
Arshad and Hameed (2009) carried out a study to investigate whether or not there is a long-term
relationship between petroleum and cereal prices using monthly data over the period of January 1980
to March 2008. The bivariate co-integration approach using the Engle-Granger two stage estimation
procedure was applied and the results showed evidence of long-run equilibrium relation between the
two prices. The Granger causality test was also carried out to test the causality between the variables
and the results revealed a unidirectional long run causality from petroleum price to cereal prices.
They go on to add that petroleum price is a factor growing in significance in the cereal complex. As
an aggregate production input, we know that rising fuel cost will push cereal production cost up.
However, there is another dimension to this linkage as with rising oil prices, there is increasing
demand for biofuels. As crude oil prices get higher, there is more demand for energy crops such as
maize- which is a feedstock to producing biodiesel. So with increasing maize production, maybe by
switching crop from wheat to maize or another possibility of more maize production for biofuel use
rather than traditional use. All this is bound to change the dynamics of the cereal market and affect
food commodity prices. Therefore we can see the greater significance oil price has on the cereal
prices.
Campiche et al. (2007) examined the evolving correspondence between petroleum prices and
agricultural commodity prices, especially keeping in mind the changing dynamics of the energy
sector as production of renewable fuels have increased dramatically. The aim was to analyze the co-
variability between crude oil prices and the following commodities- corn, sorghum, sugar, soybeans,
soybean oil and palm oil. Weekly data was used for the period 2003-07 and they tried to investigate
the co-integration between variables by running a vector error correction model, as it considers both
the long-run and short run relationships among variables. The Johansen co-integration test was
carried out for two periods 2003-05 and 2006-07. The co-integration tests revealed cointegration of
corn and soybean prices with crude oil but only during the 2006-07 period. Their results also indicate
that the crude oil prices do not adjust to the changes in corn and soybean market. They go on to say
that renewable fuels industry will continue to grow strongly and has the potential to positively affect
many agents in the US economy. However, new opportunities will also bring new sources of risk as
the agricultural food commodity markets may become more dependent on the crude oil market.
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Chen et al. (2010) too investigated the relationships between the crude oil price and the global grain
prices for the three food commodities- corn, soybean, and wheat. The time period covered in this
study extends from the 12th week in 1983 to the 5th week in 2010. The time period was divided into
further three sub-periods mainly because the data for crude oil price varies during different periods
and therefore two breakpoints were found in the 49th week in 1985 and the 3rd week in 2005. So in
all there were four periods. The empirical results showed that change in each grain price was
significantly influenced by the changes in crude oil and other grain prices during the third period,
extending from (2005w03 to 2008w20). The unique feature of this study is that the relationships are
determined using an Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. So the price of grain was
explained by lags of its own price; the current and lag price of oil; and the lag prices of the other two
grain prices. Therefore, it not only examines if oil prices affect the grain prices but also considers the
effect other food commodities (eg. Soybean and Wheat) have on Maize. The empirical findings
reveal that the change in one grain price was significantly influenced by the changes in other grain
prices in the third (2005w032008w20) and fourth (2008w212010w05) periods. This finding is
consistent with the observation that grain commodities are competing with the derived demand for
bio-fuels by using soybeans or corn to produce ethanol or bio-diesel. They also find in their results
that changes in oil prices lead to changes in grain prices and the results are statistically significant in
the first (1983w12-1985w48), third (2005w032008w20), and fourth (2008w212010w05) periods.
This implies that the oil price is the important factor of production cost for grain commodities and
intensifies the competition relationships between alternative grains.
The three papers we discussed, all found long-run relationship between crude oil and food
commodity prices. However, the existing literature on this topic is varied and there are studies that
did not get the same findings. One of them being Zhang and Reed (2008) who tried to investigate the
dynamic effect of crude oil prices on feed grain prices and pork prices. The authors try to study the
cause of rising pork prices in China from a different angle. Chinas economist underline the concern
if it is the rising crude oil prices and the large scale ethanol production which is responsible for the
high pork prices. High feed grain price is believed to be the key element behind rising pork prices.
And the feed grain prices are high because with rising fuel prices, there is increased production of
biofuel which mainly uses corn and soybean. As a result, biofuel production is driving up the costs of
corn and other feed grains which contribute to the rise in pork prices. However, their findings didnt
support the above theory. Their results revealed that crude oil price is not the most influential factor
for the rise in feed grain prices and pork prices. It is rather the demand and supply market mechanism
which is responsible for this rise. But the author acknowledges that although crude oil prices
appeared insignificant over the study period of 2000-07, it will have an impact on food prices as
prices keep increasing because of the costs involved and the dynamic relationship with biofuels.
The findings of Esmaeili and Shokoohi (2010) were similar to the above author, who indicate no
direct long-run price relation between oil and agricultural commodity prices. Yu et al. (2006)
examined the relationship between crude oil prices and vegetable oils (soybean, rapeseed, sunflower
and palm oil). Their results did not find crude oil prices to have any effect on vegetable oil prices.
And the author concludes with the end note that possibly the influence of crude oil price on edible
oils will grow if high oil prices continue and edible oils become an increasing source of biodiesel.
Additional studies have also examined the relationship among various vegetable oils- (In and Inder,
1997) found a long-run relationship, while (Owen et al., 1997) did not observe a strong enough
relationship. And finally, (Ghaith and Awad, 2011) who found long-term relationship between the
prices of crude oil and food commodities- maize, wheat, sorghum, soybean, barley, linseed oil,
soybean oil and palm oil.
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4. DATA
The period chosen for this study extends from January 1980 to December 2011 and comprises of
(32 x 12) = 384 monthly observations. The prices of commodities under study in this paper have
been obtained from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) databank -
http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm
Crude Oil (petroleum).
Data description: Price index, 2005 = 100, simple average of three spot
prices; Dated Brent, West Texas Intermediate, and the Dubai Fateh.
Unit: US Dollars per barrel (US$/bbl.).
Maize (Corn).
Data description: U.S. No.2 Yellow, FOB Gulf of Mexico, U.S. price.
Unit: US Dollars per Metric Tonne (US$/mt).
Rice.
Description: 5% broken milled white rice, Thailand nominal price quote.
Unit: US Dollars per Metric Tonne (US$/mt).
Soybeans.
Description: Chicago Soybean futures contract, No. 2 yellow and par.
Unit: US Dollars per Metric Tonne (US$/mt).
Wheat.
Description: No.1 Hard Red Winter, ordinary protein, FOB Gulf of Mexico.
Unit: US Dollars per Metric Tonne (US$/mt).
In the figure above, y axis is US Dollars per Metric tonne and x axis is year. Source: IMF
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 10
Crude Oil (petroleum) Maize (corn)
RICE SOYBEANS
WHEAT
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All the prices of the commodities are in their nominal rates. The length of the period is long enough
to determine the long-run relationship between series if there exist any. However within this period,
it has come to our notice that the prices of commodities have experienced higher rise especially over
the last few years. The International Monetary Fund (2008) published figures that between January
2000 and March 2008, the price index for all primary commodities increased 204%. A prime
contributor of this increase is the steep rise of 272% in petroleum prices and 107% in food prices. We
know that there has been a global boom in commodity markets since the early 2000s driven by strong
economic growth worldwide, but particularly in Asia. The rapid growth of emerging economies like
China and India are having a big influence in the dynamics of the commodity markets. For example,
the surge in oil price since 2003 is largely because of the growing demand for energy in China and
India.
Other significant changes have taken place over the course of the period such as the increased
production of biofuel and the commercialization of biodiesel worldwide. The increase in biofuels
production (especially in the United States, European Union) has not only increased demand for food
commodities but also brought about shifts in land use to energy crops. There is also the food price
crisis of 2007-08 which brought about the enormous price rise in food commodities due to the
combination of various factors, with the rise in Oil Prices being one of the big factors. Baffes (2007)
estimates that grain prices increase 0.18 percent for every one percent increase in the price of oil.
If we study the figure, we can see that theres an increase in the price of crude oil during 1990, which
was primarily because of the increase in precautionary demand for oil as a result of the Gulf War.
(Kilian, 2009). The nominal prices of crude oil remained below $40 /bbl until 2003, but have been on
an upward trend since, and the cause for this price shock is believed to be because of the increasing
demand for oil from the emerging economies like China and India. (Kilian, 2009; Hamilton, 2009).
We can see the huge spikes in prices of all commodities during 2008. Agricultural commodity prices
have been rising since 2002 and increasing sharply from 2007.The rise in food commodity prices was
led by cereals, where from January 2005 until June 2008, maize prices almost tripled, wheat prices
increased 127 percent and rice prices increased 170 percent (Mitchell 2008). The one that catches the
eye is the large rise in rice prices. Rice prices almost tripled from January to April 2008 despite little
change in production or stocks (Mitchell 2008). The swift increase was mainly a reaction to the rise
in wheat prices in 2007 (up 88 percent from January to December) which raised concerns about low
global grain supplies and encouraged several countries to ban rice exports to protect consumers from
international price increases. The impact of these bans or restrictions is exemplified by how
Thailands rice export price skyrocketed after India banned rice exports in October 2007. So we see
the interdependence between sectors and how one causes a reaction in others.
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5. METHODOLOGY
In this paper we will use a simple model to estimate the relationship between petroleum prices and
prices of the following main food commodities- barley, maize, rice, soybean and wheat. We will test
the hypothesis of whether the changes in petroleum prices play a significant role in changing the food
commodity prices. The estimation is based on the following equation 1.1
(1.1)
where
is the error term. All variables are in logarithms. The model is estimated in logarithms in order
to facilitate interpreting the estimated parameters as elasticities.
To examine whether or not a stable linear steady-state relationship exist between the variables, we
will need to carry out Unit root and Co-integration test.
5.1 UNIT ROOT TEST
The Unit root test is used to determine the stationarity properties of the series. The presence of unit
root proves that a series is non-stationary. A series is said to be non-stationary if the mean, variance
and auto-covariance change over time (Hatanaka. M, 2003). However, a stationary series has a mean
around which fluctuations revert (constant mean); a variation that is constant over time (constant
variance); and auto-covariance that depend only on the distance apart in time (constant covariance).
The need to test for the presence of unit root is to avoid the problem of spurious regression. Now in
economic time series, it is commonly characterized by strong trend-like behaviour and therefore the
above conditions of stationarity are violated. So if this trend-like behaviour is not considered then the
OLS estimators can give rise to misleading results and we can falsely imply that a meaningful
economic relationship exist. This phenomenon is what was described by Granger and Newbold
(1974) as spurious regression.
There are ways of testing the presence of unit root or non-stationarity. A formal and commonly used
test of non-stationarity is the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. We form the ADF regression,
equation 1.2
where
is the constant,
and finally
in the above equation 1.2 and this leads to the following equation:
ii) A random walk with a drift. It is obtained by using the constraint
in
equation 1.2 and leads to the following equation:
iii) A deterministic trend with a drift.
The sign of the drift parameter (
is statistically significant and for this we have to check the t ratio of the
coefficient of the lagged level term
(1.3)
where
is the y-intercept,
where
and
In order to determine if variables are cointegrated, we will have to test for unit roots in the residual
sequence in equation 1.3 using ADF test. The residual sequence denoted by
is a series of estimated
values of the deviation from the long-run relationship and it is estimated as,
We test for unit roots on residuals so as to determine if the deviations are stationary or not. If they are
stationary, then the series co-integrate. The ADF test is carried out on the following model,
(1.4)
where
is the parameter of interest representing the slope of the line and
Next, we determine the test statistic-
where the value of
, the estimate of
Then we compare the test statistic obtained above with the critical values from the Dickey-Fuller
table. If
is greater than the critical value, we do not reject the null hypothesis
The rejection
of the Null hypothesis would mean that the residuals are stationary, which implies that the variables
under study are co-integrated. This is the methodology to test for cointegration. The next step of the
testing is to estimate the Error Correction Model (ECM)
5.3 ERROR CORRECTION MODEL (ECM)
On finding cointegrating relationship, it only considers the long-run property of the model and does
not deal with the short-run dynamics explicitly. A good time-series model must describe both the
long-run and short-run effects of individual variables. For this purpose, we move on to the next step
of our investigation, which is to estimate the Error Correction Model. They are a category of multiple
time series models that directly estimate the speed at which a dependent variable-Y, returns to
equilibrium after a change in an independent variable- X. It is defined as a dynamic model in which
the movement of the variable in any period is related to the previous periods gap from the long run
equilibrium.
Grangers Representation Theorem states that for every cointegrated relationship, there must exist
a mechanism by which the equilibrium is maintained. Even when there exist a long run relationship,
there will be deviations from the equilibrium and the correction or the adjustment process is
described by what has become known as an Error Correction Model.
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A simple dynamic model of a short-run adjustment model is given by:
(1.5)
where
and
and
One important point to put across at this point is that the problem associated with the short-run
adjustment model is that of spurious correlation. This is the situation where two variables have no
causal relation, yet they may be inferred that they do. This problem is solved by de-trending the data.
Hence, we will estimate the first difference of equation 1.5
(1.6)
Application of first differences removes the stochastic trend from variables and while de-trending is
the step in the right direction, in that it removes the spurious regression problem of trends, but it also
throws away valuable information about the long run behavior of the variables. So the solution to
find the right balance is to adopt the Error Correction model which is as follows:
And subtracting the term
(1.7)
Next, we will subtract the term
(1.8)
Now we will rearrange equation 1.8 and we will get:
(1.9)
where
and
.
So equation 1.9 is the Error correction Model (ECM). The economic interpretation of the following
equation would go as; the immediate (or short-run impact) of
on
is given by
, the long-run
impact is given by
. Specifically,
the ECM says that the current change in
and a
correction to take account of the extent to which
as given by [
ensures that any disequilibria will be corrected. If tending to -1, then a large percentage of
disequilibria is corrected from each period; if tending to 0, then the adjustment will be slow and if the
sign is positive then it would imply that the system diverges from the long-run equilibrium path.
20
Next, we will carry out a few diagnostic tests on the model obtained in order to determine if it
satisfies a few assumptions. It is essential that the assumptions are satisfied to validate the results of
the analysis. These assumptions are-
It is a Linear Regression model. The relationship between the explanatory variables and the
outcome variable is linear. In other words, each increase by one unit in an explanatory
variable is associated with a fixed increase in the outcome variable.
The residuals are normally distributed. This assumption is required in order to conduct
hypothesis testing, particularly if the sample size is small. For sample sizes that are
sufficiently large, violation of the normality assumption is virtually inconsequential.
The errors are statistically independent of each other. i.e. there is no serial correlation among
residuals.
The variance of the residuals is constant. If this is the case, we call it Homoscedasticity,
which is desirable.
Therefore, we will have to carry out diagnostic tests to determine if any of the above assumptions
have been violated.
5.4 DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
To check the validity of the above assumptions, we will carry out the following tests:
The Jarque-Bera Normality test to check if the residuals are normally distributed.
The Breusch-Godfrey serial correlation LM test to detect the existence of serial correlation
in the model.
The Breusch-Pagan-Godfrey test to detect heteroscedasticity.
21
a) NORMALITY TEST
We will use the Jarque-Bera normality test is used to determine whether the residuals in the Error
Correction Model are normally distributed. This test measures the difference in kurtosis and
skewness of a variable compared to those of the normal distribution (Jarque and Bera, 1980).
In the Jarque-Bera test, the test statistic is:
]
where is the number of observations, is the number of estimated parameters, is the skewness
of the variable and is the kurtosis of the variable.
The Null and Alternative hypothesis is set as follows:
and the Hypothesis is given by:
and under Null hypothesis, this LM test has
distribution.
The Hypothesis is given by:
above
and beyond the information contained in past values of
and
, and we
attempt to forecast
Then
if
halps in
the prediction of
The definition leans on the idea that cause occurs before the effect and this is
basis of most, if not all causality definitions. It also must be noted that we determine if there is two-
way causation, i.e. if
causes
and if
causes
23
The Causality relationship can be evaluated by estimating the following linear regression models. For
illustration, consider a bivariate linear autoregressive model of two variables
and
here is the number of lagged observations included in this model; the matrix A contains the
coefficients of the model;
and
(or
(or
(or
) Granger(G)- causes
(or
). In other words,
G-
causes
if the coefficients in
and
doesnt causes
causes
If the p-value is below 5 percent ((p 0.05), we will reject the null. This implies that there is
causation. If the null cannot be rejected than it means that there is no causal relation between the
variables. In other words, two variables are independent to each other. The important thing to point
out here is that if the data of the variables have a trend, then it is most likely to show that there is
correlation between them. However, we must note that in general, correlation doesnt mean
causation. So Granger Causality test is important as it highlights the presence of causation and it can
be unidirectional or two way causation.
(*) The above paragraph has been used to explain Granger Causality from the following piece:
Anil Seth (2007), Scholarpedia, 2(7):1667
24
6. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The results of this paper are summarized in this section. This study used time series data for monthly
prices of crude oil and the following food commodities- maize, rice, soybeans and wheat. The
objective of the study is to find if there is a long term relationship between the crude oil prices and
the food commodity prices between the period January 1980 to December 2011. To find the
outcome, I carried out a series of tests, of which the methodology was discussed in the previous
section. I will now present the results and discuss the findings.
6.1 AUGMENTED DICKEY-FULLER UNIT ROOT TEST
We carry out this test as a standard pre-test to check for the existence of trend or in other words
testing for the presence of unit roots. Although the presence of trend-like behavior is apparent in the
time-series data and can be seen by simply plotting the data. However, choosing between the trend
stationary and unit root process is difficult. Therefore, we will carry out the formal test of non-
stationarity by using the ADF unit root test.
The process of detecting the presence of unit roots is to check the absolute value of the ADF statistic
obtained and if this value is greater than the 95% Critical value level, then we reject the null for the
presence of unit root (i.e. non stationary series). Table 1 shows the results for the underlying price
series in their levels and first differences. As we can see, the null hypothesis for the existence of unit
root could not be rejected for each of the variables in their levels and therefore we can conclude that
the series were non-stationary with presence of unit root at the 5% level of significance.
Table 1. UNIT ROOT TEST
Series Optimal Lag
length (SC)
ADF Statistic
95% Critical Values Inference
lnp 1
-2.378347 -3.421631
I(1)
dlnp 0
-14.11295* -2.868888
I(0)
lnm 1
-2.482698 -3.421631
I(1)
dlnm 0
-14.45643* -2.868888
I(0)
lnr 2
-2.323841 -3.421662
I(1)
dlnr 1
-12.73402* -2.868908
I(0)
lns 1
-2.922845 -3.421631
I(1)
dlns 0
-14.43345* -2.868888
I(0)
lnw 1
-2.884889 -3.421631
I(1)
dlnw 0
-14.97403* -2.868888
I(0)
Notes: The Null Hypothesis
: unit root exist (i.e. non-stationary series). The method to test this is to check the
absolute value of the ADF Statistic and if it is greater than the 95% CV, then we can reject the Null. Hence, unit root
doesnt exist and the series is stationary I(0).
* denotes significance at the 5% level.
25
However, the null hypothesis was rejected for all the variables in their first differences, which
implies that the series was made stationary by the application of first differences. So the series being
non-stationary in the levels and on first differencing induces stationarity, goes on to imply that the
series is integrated of order one and is denoted by I(1).
Pre-testing variables is done to determine the order of integration of each variable. By definition, for
two series to be co-integrated, it is necessary that they are integrated of the same order, ideally I(1).
We have succeeded in finding this and we will proceed to the next step, which is to carry out the
cointegration tests and it will enable us to confirm the existence (or absence) of long-run relationship
between the crude oil prices and the food commodity prices.
6.2 CO-INTEGRATION ANALYSIS.
We have identified that the price series of all the commodities are integrated of the same order. So
we will next proceed to the formal testing of long-run cointegration by performing the Engle Granger
two step procedure. We will test the bivariate relationship between oil prices and the food
commodity prices using equation 1.1 as discussed in the methodology section. In order to determine
if the variables are co-integrated, we will have to test for unit roots in the residuals. And if they are
stationary, then the series co-integrate.
We begin by estimating equation 1.3 (from the methodology section) in levels by OLS form:
Taking the example of wheat prices to analyse the results;
is the wheat price (the dependent variable). We get the following long-run estimate
with the standard errors in parentheses:
*
(0.058) (0.017)
is the intercept in the regression equation. The value is significant at the 5% significance level.
= 3.909 and it is the base level of the prediction, meaning that if the independent variable (crude
oil) is zero, then this is the value for the dependent variable (wheat price).
is the slope of the relation between crude oil price and wheat prices. So if the price of crude oil
increases by 1 percent, then there will be an increase in the price of wheat by 0.348 percent.
* Appendix 2.1
26
statistic measures the success of the regression in predicting the values of the dependent variable
within the sample. So, in this equation, 52.1% of the fraction of variance is explained by the model.
DW is the Durbin Watson statistic, which measures the serial correlation in the residuals. As we can
recall, we discussed in the methodology section that it is very important that the residuals follow
some assumptions for the validity of the regression model. In the above model, a DW statistic of
0.098 is a strong indicator of serial correlation (which is undesirable).
On further carrying out the Residual Diagnostics, we see that the model rejects the null for Normal
distribution, no serial correlation and homoscedasticity. Hence it invalidates the standard estimation
and inference of the model. This maybe because we have used a static model and have simply
ignored the dynamic effects. Static models are very useful but they often mis-specify what the
driving factors are. So we introduce a Dynamic model (with lagged terms). An Autoregressive
Distributed Lag (ADL) model of first order is called ADL(1) model. On introducing dynamic terms
to our above static model, the ADL(1) model for wheat would look like:
On running the equation, we get the following long run estimates:
*
(0.059) (0.035) (0.015) (0.035)
statistic improved and is close to 1. The Durbin Watson statistic too has improved significantly and is
closer to 2.0, which implies being consistent with no serial correlation. We can also try an ADL(2)
model, which might lead to even a better representation. So the important question that arises here is,
how many lags do we need to include in our model? The most commonly used method of testing for
lag length is the Information criteria. There are three namely- Akaike Information criterion (AIC),
Schwarz Criterion (SC) and Hannan-Quinn (HQC). We will be using the Schwarz criterion (SC), as
this is the most consistent (i.e. the probability of selecting the true model approaches one as sample
grows). We will select the model with the lowest value of SC. And once we get our model, we can
find the statistics of the model. However, the main task at first is to find if there is a long-term
relationship between the variables. Next, are the steps to estimate the cointegration regression and
establish if there is cointegration between crude oil price and food commodity price.
We select the method COINTREG for the estimation setting dialogue. In order to obtain the same
results as our static model, we will further select Dynamic OLS for method and None for the lag
& lead length under the Non-stationary Estimation setting. On obtaining the Cointegrating
Regression, we next select the Engle-Granger Cointegration test. By this series of steps, the software
(Eviews) estimates m+1 different models, and selects the model with the optimal lag length. The
order of integration of the residuals is estimated by evaluating the null of non-stationarity for the
* Appendix 2.2
27
ADF regression discussed in the methodology section. The residual ADF statistic is called the Engle-
Granger tau statistic. We will have to check the probability values (MacKinnon (1996) p-values) to see
if the test statistic is large enough to reject the null of no cointegration. It is very important to point
out that the critical values of the ADF test on the residuals are different from the ones used for testing
of unit root in the series.
The results are reported in Table 2. The null hypothesis of no cointegration was rejected for Maize,
Soybeans and Wheat. Therefore, a long-run relationship exists between crude oil prices and the
prices of maize, soybeans and wheat at the 5% level of significance or better. The results are
consistent with the findings of Arshad and Hameed (2009); Ghaith and Awad (2011). The findings
go on to confirm the significant role crude oil prices have on the food commodity prices. Firstly, as a
production input and secondly, the dynamic effect it has because of the increasing demand for
biofuels.
Table 2. CO-INTEGRATION TEST
Commodity
Engle-Granger Tau
Statistic
Probability
(*)
Result
Maize & Crude oil
-3.948992 0.0093
Reject Null.
Rice & Crude oil
-3.040903 0.1033
Unable to reject Null.
Soybeans & Crude Oil
-3.859794 0.0122
Reject Null.
Wheat & Crude Oil
-4.184045 0.0043
Reject Null.
Notes: The Null Hypothesis
is that there is no co-integration. The method to test this is to check the p-value of
the Engle-Granger test statistic. If the p-value is less than 5 percent (p-value 0.05), we then reject the Null of no
co-integration. So there will be cointegration between the variables.
* MacKinnon (1996) p-values
So cointegration among non-stationary prices of crude oil and the three food commodities means that
a linear combination of them was stationary and therefore, the prices tended to move towards the
equilibrium relationship in the long-run. However, despite the three commodities (maize, soybean
and wheat) being cointegrated with crude oil prices, there is rice for which we didnt find co-
integration with crude oil prices as the p-value of the Engle-Granger Tau statistic is above 5% level
of significance, and this is too weak to be able to reject the null of no co-integration.
Having found co-integrating relationship between crude oil price & maize, soybeans and wheat, we
will now estimate the models for each food commodity with the optimal number of lags based on the
Schwarz criterion (SC). And following this, we can establish the statistics and inferences of the long-
run relationship estimates.
28
Note: Numbers in parentheses under the coefficients are standard errors &
The test results are in Appendix 2.4
MAIZE
ADL (1) MODEL FOR MAIZE
LNM = 0.1103 + 0.0251*LNP + 0.9634*LNM(-1) - 0.0052*LNP(-1)
(0.0514 ) (0.035) (0.013) (0.036)
After putting the coefficient estimate values obtained, we get-
(0.003) (0.035) (0.014)
is the coefficient which will help us establish the short-run impact that the change in crude oil
prices will have on soybean prices. The results indicate that if there is 1 percentage point increase in
the rate of rise in crude oil prices, then the rate of increase in the soybean prices will be 0.0883
percent. The estimated coefficient is significant at the 5% significance level.
is the other statistic of importance and it is the coefficient of Res(-1). Now Res(-1) is the one
lagged difference of the residuals we obtained from the static regression equation of soybean and
crude oil prices. We must also note that if the sign of the coefficient is negative, it is implying the
deviations from the equilibrium that are corrected. The magnitude of the error correction term here
indicates that around 0.0358 percent of the disequilibrium is corrected monthly to maintain the long-
run equilibrium. The coefficient is significant at the 5% significance level.
We also have carry out the residual diagnostics to ensure that the errors of the ECM satisfy the usual
assumptions. The null for residuals being normally distributed couldnt be rejected as the p-value of
the Jarque Bera statistic was 0.08612, which is greater than 0.05. The Null for homoscedasticity too
couldnt be rejected as the p-value (chi-square) for the observed R-squared value was 0.1028, which
is again greater than 0.05, so we therefore cannot reject the null. Finally the test for serial correlation,
the p-value of the observed R-squared was 0.3185, which is greater than 0.05. And therefore we
cannot reject null of no serial correlation.
Table 3. ERROR CORRECTION MODEL
Dependent variable
Independent variable
(crude oil) d(lnp)
Coefficient ECT
Maize d(lnm)
0.023756
(0.5043)
-0.036757*
(0.0061)
Soybeans d(lns)
0.088304*
(0.0118)
-0.035825*
(0.0099)
Wheat d(lnw)
0.055609**
(0.1090)
-0.043033*
(0.0033)
Notes: numbers in parentheses are the p-values (MacKinnon (1996) p-values).
* significance at 5% level of significance or better.
** significance at 10% level of significance.
31
Table 3 summarizes the coefficient estimates obtained from the Error Correction Models. Firstly, we
can see that the sign of the coefficients of the error correction terms are negative and therefore
implying that the deviations from the equilibrium are corrected. The coefficient estimates are all
significant at 1% level of significance. And in the second column, we see that 0.036% for maize and
0.043% of the disequilibrium is corrected every month for wheat to help maintain the long-run
relationship between the following food commodities and the crude oil prices. We also see that if
there is a 1 percentage point increase in the rate of rise in crude oil prices, then the rate of increase in
the maize prices will be 0.0237 percent and the rate of increase in the wheat prices will be 0.0556
percent. However, among the two, the coefficient estimate of maize prices is insignificant and wheat
prices are only significant at borderline 10% level of significance.
Finally, since we didnt find cointegrating relationship between crude oil price and price of rice, we
didnt estimate the ECM. But we did estimate a short-run model for Rice without using the error
correction term. The results were inferring that if there is a 1 percentage point increase in the rate of
rise in crude oil prices, then the short-run impact on rice prices will be that the rate of increase will
be 0.0185 percent. But the coefficient estimate results were insignificant.
6.4 CAUSALITY TESTS
In this section, we discuss the results of the Granger Causality test summarized in Table 4. We find
from our tests that there is significant causal relationship from crude oil prices to each of the food
commodity prices used in our study. The results show that crude oil prices Granger cause the prices
of maize, rice, soybean, wheat and the findings are significant at the 5% level of significance.
However, there is causation in only one direction and the results do not indicate reverse causation of
food commodity prices too having a causal effect on crude oil prices. So the test highlights the
presence of only unidirectional causality.
This outcome was expected in the sense, from our previous discussions about the effects of oil prices
on food commodity prices. With increase in oil prices, there was the supply side effect which caused
agricultural production cost to rise and thereby affecting grain prices. There is also the demand side
effect as food commodities compete with derived demand for biofuels. So as we can see, there are
various linkages through which oil prices can affect food price and our results validate these points.
Our results are also consistent with the findings Arshad and Hameed (2009) who too found
unidirectional long-run causality flowing from petroleum prices to cereal prices.
32
Table 4. GRANGER CAUSALITY TEST
Commodity
Hypothesis F-
Statistics
p-value Causal
Reference
Crude oil (lnp)
& Maize (lnm)