The Financialization of Food?

50 Pages Posted: 17 Mar 2015 Last revised: 10 Feb 2016

See all articles by Valentina Bruno

Valentina Bruno

American University - Department of Finance and Real Estate; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Bahattin Buyuksahin

CoMeX Consulting and Advising

Michel A. Robe

University of Richmond - E. Claiborne Robins School of Business

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: February 1, 2016

Abstract

Commodity-equity return co-movements rose dramatically during the Great Recession. This development took place following what has been dubbed the “financialization” of commodity markets. We first document changes since 1995 in the relative importance of financial institutions’ activity in agricultural futures markets. We then use a structural VAR model to ascertain the role of that activity in explaining correlations between weekly grain, livestock, and equity returns in 1995-2015. We provide robust evidence that, accounting for shocks which are idiosyncratic to agricultural markets, world business cycle shocks have a substantial and long-lasting impact on the latter’s co-movements with financial markets. In contrast, changes in the intensity of financial speculation have an impact on cross-market return linkages that is shorter-lived and not statistically significant in all model specifications.

Keywords: Financialization, Fundamentals, Grains, Livestock, Equities, Co-movements, ADCC, Structural VAR

JEL Classification: Q11, Q13, G12, G13

Suggested Citation

Bruno, Valentina Giulia and Buyuksahin, Bahattin and Robe, Michel A., The Financialization of Food? (February 1, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2323064 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2323064

Valentina Giulia Bruno

American University - Department of Finance and Real Estate ( email )

Kogod School of Business
4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20016-8044
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.american.edu/kogod/faculty/bruno.cfm

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Bahattin Buyuksahin

CoMeX Consulting and Advising ( email )

Washington, DC
United States
2022904253 (Phone)

Michel A. Robe (Contact Author)

University of Richmond - E. Claiborne Robins School of Business ( email )

Richmond, VA 23173
United States

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