OCR A2 Economics F585 (Feb 2011) - Price Volatility
One important aspect of the OCR A2 Economics F585 (Feb 2011) Pre-Release Case Study is the causes of price volatility in world markets. As Extract 1, page 4, paragraph four says:
“The value of banana exports for developing countries depends critically on the world price of bananas. The price is volatile in the short term, yet there are distinct trends in price over the medium term.”
read more...»Watch out for the £7 chocolate bar!
Will a collapse in global cocoa production bring an end to chocolate as an affordable treat and giver of blood sugar? This article from the Independent today was timely as I am teaching price volatility in commodity markets in my AS micro class as a prelude to discussions abour price intervention strategies such as maximum prices / buffer stock schemes etc. I have attached my class homework as a word file in case it is of use to colleagues.
Cocoa Economics (AS micro)
Cocoa_Economics.docx
Here is a highly relevant section from a new report from Commodities Now
“World food prices have been trending higher as emerging markets have increased their share of global food demand due to rising populations and incomes. Food products are having to compete for finite resources such as water, land and fertiliser inputs and are increasingly being used for alternative applications such as bio-fuels. As an example, ethanol now accounts for approximately one-third of annual corn output in the US, up from 5% a decade ago.”
More here and some links to useful news articles.
The Market for Potash
This is a superb BBC news report on the rising demand for and prices of potash.
Potash is shorthand for potassium carbonate - a potassium compound often used in agriculture and industry. Potash is the third major plant and crop nutrient after nitrogen and phosphate and the vast majority of the annual global supply is used as a soil fertilizer. It is a product with virtually no close substitute making the demand insensitive to the ruling market price - the price elasticity of demand for potash is very low and high prices make the product hugely profitable to supply
read more...»Potash - a battle for grey dust that has become gold dust
The market for a particularly lucrative gray dust has been thrust into the spotlight this summer with news of a $38.5bn (£25bn) hostile takeover bid from Australian mining giant BHP Billiton for Potash Corp of Saskatchewan in Canada a business coined by some as the “Saudi Arabia of Potash”!
read more...»Presentation - Wheat Prices in 2010
Here is a new streamed revision presentation that covers key changes in global wheat prices during 2010 and their economic impact. Surging wheat prices impact on producers and consumers of many different goods and services. The market is a great case study in the causes of price volatility and the inter-connected nature of markets.
read more...»
Cocoa Economics
The global cocoa market is a focus of much attention at the moment. Global prices are close to record highs and are likely to stay strong for some time to come. Just two weeks ago we learnt of the single largest cocoa trade in 14 years with a hedge fund manager purchasing 240,000 tonnes of cocoa beans (seven per cent of the entire world’s supply) valued at £650m ($992m) and sufficient to make five billion chocolate bars!
High prices are the result of surging market demand and limits to available supply. Jürgen Steinemann, chief executive of Barry Callebaut, a chocolatier supplying many of the world’s top foods groups, is reported as saying that: “At this moment, cocoa is a scarce material: demand has been rising, supply has been stable, so prices have gone up.”
Market demand for cocoa is coming from the developed world and emerging markets - rising per capita incomes are fuelling higher demand for chocolate-based products. Chocolate consumption in India, China and demand has been increasing by 15-20% annually and this is expected to continue.
On the supply side there are signs that production is being hit by poor weather conditions, underinvestment in cocoa plantations and a shift of production away from cocoa towards lucrative products such as rubber. Destructive diseases, such as black pod disease have plagued cocoa yields in Africa for the past 15 years.
According to a report in the Scottish newspaper the Herald, “Ivorian cocoa trees, planted more than 25 years ago, have already passed their peak of productivity and, without new planting, production in the country is likely to drop every year, tightening the global market as demand rebounds.”
read more...»Broker spends $520m in a drunken stupor and moves the global oil price
Not an example you would find in a standard textbook - but a fun one to use nonetheless!
Ethiopia’s electronic market place
Coffee is a lifeline for twelve million farmers in Ethopia who are vulnerable to volatile world prices and the monopsony power of the major coffee roasting businesses. But this heart-warming report from Jonathan Dimbleby finds that a new electronic trading system is providing a superb market place for the setting of prices - connected instantaneously to the world commodities market.
Prices agreed on the Ethiopian trading floor are transmitted round the world and the farmer is guaranteed payment within 24 hours. Since the exchange was launched over $400m has been traded without a single dollar of default. Farmers are getting the price that is agreed on the open-outcry market platform. Technology as a support to the problems of real people - outstanding.
Is the UK coal industry turning a corner?
These are fascinating times for the UK coal industry. Over several decades, production of coal from an industry that once employed hundreds of thousands was in steep decline. The nadir appeared to be the early 1990s when an accelerated pit closure programme was introduced as the UK turned decisively towards gas a major energy source. The result was the end for deep-mine activity for thousands of miners, high levels of structural unemployment and major economic and social problems for local communities.
read more...»AS Economics Revision - Stocks and Prices
In many AQA AS microeconomics exams, the focus of the stimulus materials is on a market or inter-related markets where prices have changed and which raise interesting questions about the causes of price volatility and arguments for and against some form of intervention.
One aspect for students to consider is the relationship between stocks of a product and the direction of changes in market prices.
Stocks (also known as inventories) are products ready for sale but not yet purchased. They might include finished output 9such as new cars) or inventories of components, work in progress and raw materials.
Movements in inventories can trigger price changes. In our two examples we focus on the market for copper and for crude oil. In both cases look to see how prices move when there is a noticeable reduction in stock levels, perhaps reflecting a rise in market demand set against an inelastic short-run supply. When stocks are low, prices are bidded up not least in commodities markets where speculators look to make speculative purchases when they feel that the balance of power in a market is tilting in favour of the seller (i.e there is excess demand and stocks are declining).
A market where inventories are high is one where, ceteris paribus, there is downward pressure on equilibrium prices.
AS Economics Revision - Oil and Petrol Prices
This week we have heard news that the price of petrol and diesel at the pumps has reached a record high.
The data chart above provides another opportunity for students to familiarise themselves with changes in price information over time and perhaps try this question
“Using the extract, identify two points of comparison between UK diesel and petrol prices and the world price of crude oil over the period shown by the data” (8 marks)
read more...»AS Economics Revision - Changing Market Prices for Cars
This chart provides some price information from the markets for new and used vehicles in the UK.
I am using it as practice for my students in describing economic data - one of the skills that is tested on their Unit 1 micro paper.
read more...»Metal prices on the rise again
What do the following businesses have in common?
Anglo American
Antofagasta
BHP Billiton
Eurasian Natural Resources
Fresnillo
Kazakhmys
Lonmin
Randgold
Rio Tinto
Vedanta
Xstrata
Revision Presentation - The World Oil Market
The forces of supply and demand in the global oil market feature frequently in economics exams. So here is a revision update on what has happened to the world oil market in the last 12 months. It was a year when crude oil prices recovered quite strongly from their lows at the start of 2009. As we head into 2010, the price of a barrel of crude is rising above $80 and strong economic growth in emerging market countries together with the lagged effects of reduced investment in oil exploration and drilling may take prices closer to $100 in the year ahead.
Launch revision presentation on World Oil Market in 2009
Download revision slide handouts
Price Volatility in Markets - Teacher Presentation
This new revision presentation looks at the causes and conseqences of price volatility in markets - particularly commodity markets. It includes links to relevant news stories which help illustrate the basic demand and supply theory.
Launch interactive version of presentation on Price Volatility in Markets
Download pdf of slide handouts
Peak Gold
If world supply of gold is now past its peak, the bull run for gold on world bullion markets may have some distance to travel, This is the interpretation of this article in the Telegraph which reports that global gold output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run. This BBC video report looks at the decision of India’s government to purchase of 200 tonnes from the International Monetary Fund - the single biggest gold purchase by a central bank in the past 30 years. The government is exchanging US dollars for their gold equivalent - a hedge against rising world inflation and a weakening dollar.
Soaring cocoa prices as supply fails to keep pace with demand
There is an excellent article in the Times today about the surge in the world price of cocoa. Cocoa prices have hit a 30-year high as poor weather threatens to drive the price of chocolate up again for Western consumers. Cocoa has reached $3,412 a tonne in New York as concerns deepened about demand outstripping supply for the first time since 1968. This is a really good article to use to consolidate students’ understanding of how shifts in supply and demand can lead to price volatility. And also the importance of price elasticity of demand and supply in shaping price changes.
“The surge in price also indicates that cocoa is increasingly being used for financial investment rather than merely sold to industry”
* What factors are limiting cocoa supply?
* Why is demand from western economies rising - even though many are still in recession?
* Will cocoa farmersd necessarily gain from higher world prices?
Sugar prices and production and investment incentives
World sugar prices are close to a 30 year high with values on the Chicago mercantile exchange hovering just under $30c per pound. For countries whose sugar exports account for a large proportion of their export earnings, the steep increase in world prices has brought about an improvement in their terms of trade and - because demand for many foodstuffs is price inelastic, a favourable change in their balance of trade. A good example of this is the African country of Mozambique, a nation almost destroyed by a long running civil war that eventually ended in the early 1990s but which has also been hit in recent years by severes drought hit many central and southern parts of the country, including previously flood-stricken areas. And where half of the population must survive on less than $1 a day.
read more...»Speculators and Exceptions to the Law of Demand
To what extent are speculators responsible for the increasing volatility of commodity prices? Expectations of price movements for globally traded commodities can have a huge impact on demand in the markets and the bets that speculators make on the forward prices of commodities such as oil can lead to rapid price hikes. We saw this with food and oil in 2008 - with enormous consequences for consumers and producers in developed and developing countries - and perhaps we are seeing this again as 2009 draws to a close. The world price of crude oil is already heading north again towardsa $90 a barrel.
This BBC world service audio report is a good resource on the impact of speculation and its possible links to exceptions to the law of demand where a rise in actual or expected prices can bring about an expansion of market demand.
“The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington has studied price movements and concluded that they couldn’t all be explained by the fundamentals. And, perhaps most damning of all, a big-time speculator is now identifying speculation as one of the causes in the movement of the price of oil.”
Interactive Guide - the Gold Price Timeline
A superb interactive resource from the FT is well worth looking at. It charts the timeline of the significant events that have moved gold prices over the last century. Take a look here
Banana Price War Must Hit Growers
The supermarkets are spinning the latest price war for sales of bananas as a welcome boost to the spending power of hard-pressed consumers. True in the short term - cheaper bananas in my household will simply encourage me to buy more but ultimately throw most of them away. The medium term impact on banana growers is of much greater importance and it is this issue that was addressed in a timely and useful Big Question feature in the Independent yesterday. Here is the link.
The Big Question: Why are bananas so cheap, and what does it mean for producers?
There is a huge amount of economics in the article not least some evidence on the oligopsonistic power of banana growers and the oligopolistic battle for market share among the major retailers:
“Banana production is an operation on a gigantic industrial scale and is dominated by just five huge companies, Chiquita (formerly United Fruit), Dole, Del Monte, Noboa and Fyffes, which control 80 per cent of the global trade between them.”
“Asda - which sells two million kilograms of bananas a week - is charging 46p/kg. On August 25, the price was 84p/kg and 99p/kg last Christmas. Tesco and Sainsbury’s had been forced to match Asda’s price while the cost of bananas at Morrisons has fallen to 57p/kg and 59p/kg at Waitrose.” (Daily Mail)
More here
Olive Oil Producers Suffer from Falling Prices
For the olive oil growers of Spain falling prices are threatening their very existence. They claim that the supermarkets - who sell 9 out of every 10 bottles - have used their market muscle to drive down the retail price and the growers are barely able to justify continuing production. This is a good short video on the workings of the price mechanism.
World Tea Prices Climb to New High
The price of tea on the global market has surged to a fifteen year high. Supply and demand factors are both at work as this short streamed presentation shows
There are over 1,500 different types of tea so discussing what is happening to the ‘world price’ has its limitations! But this is an interesting market to explore for AS students covering as it does
*Market demand and supply factors
*The impact of price volatility
*Do tea producers actually gain from rising market prices
*Price and income elasticity of demand for tea
*Fair Trade and tea pricing policies
*The impact of changing tea prices on demand for and supply of related products
*The significance of world tea prices for macroeconomic performance of major tea exporting nations
Once students have the core supply and demand analysis, this is a topic that we can return to later on in the course and also in revision
Imbalance between supply and demand drives sugar prices to 28 year high
There is plenty of coverage today of the news that the global price of raw sugar has increased to its highest level since March 1981 on the back of a widening imbalance between world supply and demand.
The hike in sugar prices is a classic market response to a rise in demand for sugar - especially in countries such as Brazil where a growing volume is being used as a (subsidised) source of ethanol - combined with supply shortages caused by low rainfall during the monsoon season in India and China and hail and drought affecting supplies from Russia.
Sugar output in India has contracted by more than 45% over the last year and the country is on the point of moving from being a net exporter to a net importer of sugar if measures are taken to limit existing exports to maintain sufficient supplies for the home economy. Global sugar demand will exceed output by as much as 5 million tons in the year through September 2010, according to the International Sugar Organization in London.
When demand exceeds supply, existing stocks fall and this is a key factor driving prices higher. Speculators can cause the price movements to be exaggerated as they trade in the forward markets to buy up available stocks in the expectation of further price increases.
Independent: Chasing a sugar rush: global deficit drives price rises
Telegraph: Sugar price hits 28-year high
Tentative signs of a pulse in the housing market
Whisper it quietly but there are some signs of a turning point in sentiment, lending, activity and price levels in the UK residential housing market after a very difficult eighteen months. There is a chance that average price levels might end the year slightly higher than they started. Here is a brief selection of charts that offer a modicum of optimism and an incentive for me to spend some of August looking for a good value property on the Northumberland coast!
read more...»Economics Snapshot - Hedging the Fuel Price
Hedging is a way of reducing uncertainty over the future path of volatile commodity prices such as the cost of fuel. One the most important decisions that an airline can take is the extent to which it uses hedging to lock in the price of a barrel of kerosene for a period of six or twelve months.
Ryanair provides a good example of how this can have a decisive effect on profitability. Late in 2008 Ryanair was hedged into paying the equivalent of $125 a barrel for kerosene just as the world price price of oil was collapsing to below $40 a barrel - the result was higher operating costs and a Euro 150 million hit on profits. For 2009 around four-fifths of Ryanair’s fuel requirements are locked in at $62 a barrel which with oil prices nudging up towards $70 a barrel will give the airline much needed breathing space as the recession affects demand for seats and forces many airlines to cut prices still further to maintain a profitable level of load-factor (the percentage of seats on each flight that are filled).
*Ryanair is now Europe’s largest airline having overtaken Lufthansa and British Airways
*In the last twelve months nearly 60 million passengers have flown with the airline
*With a market capitalisation of £4.6 billion, Ryanair is larger than the German flag carrier and easily more than twice the size of BA.
*Ryanair has a 28% stake in rival Irish airline Aer Lingus and has tried several times to take it over - so far without success!
OPEC compliance dips with the oil price
Weak oil prices test the resolve of the eleven members of the oil cartel OPEC whose output is bound by quota agreements. The International Energy Agency reported that in June the compliance rate for OPEC members fell to 68% after reaching 80% earlier on in the years - in a nutshell, a number of OPEC countries are pumping more oil out of the ground than allowed by their quotas.
OPEC has 36% of current world crude oil production - it expects this to edge towards 40% over the next twenty years. Global oil-demand forecasts are heavily dependent in the short term on the strength of any anticipated rebound in world trade and output. In the medium term demand will be affected by the scale of a substitution towards renewables such as bio-fuels, wind and solar energy supplies. Lower oil prices makes these alternatives less profitable in the near term.
Government Failure: Thai Rice Buffer Stock
Over the last twenty to thirty years, buffer stock schemes introduced by national governments or collectives of producers have been riddled with problems. The fiscal costs of buying the storing products purchased at guaranteed minimum prices have come to haunt many governments including those in the EU who paid billions of euros for inefficient and inequitable farm support policies. Here is another example of a misguided price support scheme - the Thai rice mortgage scheme introduced a couple of years ago when global food price inflation was at its most severe.
According to this excellent piece from the BBC, “The Thai government is now sitting on a vast stockpile of rice that it bought at peak prices. As the country is such a big supplier to the world market, it cannot sell all this rice without depressing prices even further.” And the gains have been unevenly spread….“rich farmers in the central plains are in areas with irrigation, so they can grow something like three crops a year…..poor farmers in the north-east, they don’t have surplus of rice to sell, so they don’t benefit from this programme at all.”
Petrol-Diesel Price Difference Narrows
Crude oil prices are heading towards $75 a barrel as speculators bet on a stronger-than -expected global economic recovery and naturally prices for fuel on the forecourts are heading northwards too. But an interesting feature of the latest price changes is the narrowing of the price premium that drivers with diesel-fuelled vehicles must pay. Apparently the closing of the gap is due to a relative abundance of diesel fuel stocks on the international market.
The name comes from German inventor Rudolf Diesel, who built the first diesel-powered engine in 1892
OCR2888: Understanding Food Price Volatility
The Lex column in today’s Financial Times has a superb piece on why food prices may start rising again raising fresh fears of high food price inflation. The key is to understand the reactions of farmers to changes in prices and the decisions they make about whether to plant new crops on marginally productive land. See this short extract:
“The cost of corn, soya and wheat has fallen sharply from the levels they reached last summer at the height of the commodity boom. But lower prices mean lower returns per acre, so farmers are cutting plantings of marginally productive land to maximise profits…....This is precisely the set-up investors who worry about a rapid return of inflation fear: low prices lead to underinvestment and cuts in productive capacity. When the economy picks up, prices soar because suppliers – in this case, farms – cannot keep up with renewed demand.”
(1) How could you illustrate the process described above with supply and demand diagrams?
(2) Explain why price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply is relevant in explaining food price volatility
(3) What do you understand by the term ‘marginally productive land’?
