How Does Oil Price Volatility Affect Non-Energy Commodity Markets?

Abstract

The influence of price volatility in the crude oil market is expanding to non-energy commodity markets. With the substitution of fossil fuels by bio-fuel and hedge strategies against inflation induced by high oil prices, the link between crude oil market and agriculture markets and metal markets has increased. This study measures the influence of the crude oil market on non-energy commodity markets before and after the 2008 financial crisis. By introducing the US dollar index as exogenous shocks, we investigate price and volatility spillover between commodity markets by constructing a bi-variate EGARCH model with time-varying correlation construction. The results reveal that the crude oil market has significant volatility spillover effects on non-energy commodity markets, which demonstrates its core position among commodity markets. The overall level of correlation strengthened after the crisis, which indicates that the consistency of market price trends was enhanced affected by economic recession. In addition, the influence of the US dollar index on commodity markets has weakened since the crisis.

Keywords: Crude oil market; Non-energy commodity market; Volatility spillover; Dynamic correlation