Recent developments in commodity modeling : a World Bankfocus

This paper provides insights into international commodity modeling by providing a survey of recent developments in this modeling area and by explaining how these developments interacted with and were applied within the Bank. Following a brief introduction into basic commodity modeling purposes, a fuller description is given of the nature of the various methodologies, and of recent advances in their formulation. The Bank's employment of these methodologies in constructing and operating a variety of commodity models is then discussed. While a perspective is provided regarding historical modeling developments within the Bank, most of the review is concerned with the Bank's recent success in utilizing these models for forecasting and market analysis purposes.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Geographical Information Systems

Trends versus cycles in global wine export shares

The global wine market has witnessed major changes in recent years. Some of these changes are structural in nature or trend-following, whereas others are cyclical. Recently, new market entrants have increased their exports not only to traditional European markets but to other importing regions as well, whereas Old World producers have experienced declining market shares. However, the evidence examined here suggests that market share data also contain strong cyclical components. Mixed results also occur when the wine export data are disaggregated into products. This paper employs econometric methods to analyse the recent major shifts in world wine market shares and explains whether these are more of a secular trend-setting nature or of a temporary cyclical nature.international wine trade, New World wine producers, Old World wine producers, wine cycles, wine market shares, wine trends, International Relations/Trade,

Dematerialization and Transmaterialization: What Have We Learned?

Long-term materials demand patterns are important to examine because of the possibility of material obsolescence as well as the long lead times required to create new mineral productive capacity. Since structural changes in materials demand are inevitably linked to the performance and adjustments of national economies, materials life cycles have often been examined in the context of intensity of use (IOU). Explanations of these structural changes have focused on dematerialization; this concept implies a structural change in an economy embodying a reduced demand for materials and, therefore, a decline in overall industrial growth. An alternative view is that of transmaterialization, which implies a recurring industrial transformation in the way that economic societies use materials, a process that has occurred regularly or cyclically throughout history. These patterns vary notably across regions. The purpose of this paper is to explore more recent developments in the analysis of these concepts and to provide new directions for future applications

Commodity Price Fluctuations: A Century of Analysis

Commodity prices again! The twentieth century has only been the latest spectator to the impacts and importance of commodity price fluctuations. It is reasonably well known that commodity price records have come down to us from the ancient civilizations of India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Earlier in the century, formal research began on the relationships between agricultural demand, supply and prices in a market context. This research not only evolved in sophistication but extended to mineral and energy commodities. Also at the beginning of the century, some of the earliest work took place on applying statistical methods to price series. The purpose of this paper is to review how this progress has contributed to analyzing commodity markets and prices and to solving price forecasting problems, concentrating on more recent advances in econometric modeling and time series analysis. Attention is also paid to spatial developments that have implications for regional price modeling

The Problems and Challenges For International Commodity Models and Model Studies

This paper will first provide a background on methodology and problems; it will then offer suggestions to how model builders can cope accordingly