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Commodity price forecasts and futures prices

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  • Boum-Jong Choe

Abstract

The International Commodity Markets Division (CM) of the World Bank started forecasting primary commodity prices more than two decades ago. The forecast accuracy, or forecast biases and informational efficiency, has been a major concern and the subject of occasional retrospective studies. This paper explores the relationship between commodity futures prices and price expectations. It focuses of the usefulness of futures prices as a short-term price forecasting tool. In 1989, Froot and Frankel used survey data on exchange rate expectations to estimate the relative importance of risk premium and expectational error in explaining the forward discount biases in foreign exchange rates. They found that expectational errors dominate the forward discount bias and that the risk premium is small, relatively stable, and not correlated with the expectational error. This paper follows the Froot and Frankel analysis to see if commodity prices exhibit similar characteristics. It goes a step further and estimates a relationship between futures prices and price expectations. The paper summarizes the characteristics of the forecast and futures price data, tests the rationality of futures prices and decomposes the futures price bias. It also conducts direct statistical tests of the importance of risk premium and expectational error.

Suggested Citation

  • Boum-Jong Choe, 1990. "Commodity price forecasts and futures prices," Policy Research Working Paper Series 436, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:436
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    2. Lewis, Karen K, 1989. "Changing Beliefs and Systematic Rational Forecast Errors with Evidence from Foreign Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 621-636, September.
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    4. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    5. Turnovsky, Stephen J, 1983. "The Determination of Spot and Futures Prices with Storable Commodities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1363-1387, September.
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    11. Boum-Jong Choe, 1990. "Rational expectations and commodity price forecasts," Policy Research Working Paper Series 435, The World Bank.
    12. Ronald Britto, 1984. "The Simultaneous Determination of Spot and Futures Prices in a Simple Model with Production Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(2), pages 351-365.
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