At the NBER Annual Conference on Macroeconomics in Cambridge last week I participated with Steven Kamin of the Federal Reserve Board and Steven Strongin of Goldman Sachs in a discussion on commodity prices. You can watch a video of our discussion at the NBER web site.
Category Archives: commodities
Recent moves in oil prices
Today I discuss the factors that brought oil prices so far down and more recently back up.
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World oil supply and demand
According to the Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review database, world field production of crude oil in September was up 1.5 million barrels a day over the previous year. More than all of that came from a 440,000 b/d increase in the U.S., 550,000 b/d from Saudi Arabia, and 900,000 b/d from Iraq. If it had not been for the increased oil production from these three countries, world oil production would actually have been down almost 400,000 b/d over the last year.
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Commodity prices and exchange rates
The dramatic decline in the prices of a number of commodities over the last 16 months must have a common factor. One variable that seems to be quite important is the exchange rate.
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Supply, demand and the price of oil
Could the price of oil be a value such that the current quantity produced exceeds the current quantity consumed? The answer is yes, and indeed that has been the case for much of the past year.
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Economic importance of China
How important would an economic downturn in China be for the United States?
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On China, and Preventing the Financial Runs of August
Reasoned analysis and careful decisionmaking is required.
China’s economic slowdown
U.S. stock prices as measured by the S&P500 fell almost 7% last week. What’s going on?
Value of S&P500 index over last 3 months. Source: Google Finance.
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Guest Contribution: “Why Are So Many Commodity Prices Down in the US… Yet Up in Europe?”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and former Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1997-99.
Guest Contribution: “Commodity-Price Comovement and Global Economic Activity”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution by Ron Alquist, Policy Adviser at the Bank of Canada, and Olivier Coibion, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the views of the Bank of Canada or any other institution with which the authors are affiliated.