The Economics Of Commodity Markets

As commodity markets have continued their expansion an extensive and
complex financial industry has developed to service them. This industry
includes hundreds of participating firms, including asset managers,
brokers, consultants, verification agencies and a myriad of other
institutions. Universities and other training institutions have responded
to this rapid expansion of commodity markets as well as their substantial
future growth potential by launching specialized courses on the subject.
The Economics of Commodity Markets attempts to bridge the gap between
academics and working professionals by way of a textbook that is both
theoretically informative and practical. Based in part on the authors’
teaching experience of commodity finance at the University Paris Dauphine,
the book covers all important commodity markets topics and includes
coverage of recent topics such as financial applications and intuitive
economic reasoning. The book is composed of three parts that cover:
commodity market dynamics, commodities and the business cycle, and
commodities and fundamental value. The key original approach to the subject
matter lies in a shift away from the descriptive to the econometric
analysis of commodity markets. Information on market trends of commodities
is presented in the first part, with a strong emphasis on the quantitative
treatment of that information in the remaining two parts of the book.
Readers are provided with a clear and succinct exposition of up-to-date
financial economic and econometric methods as these apply to commodity
markets. In addition a number of useful empirical applications are
introduced and discussed. This book is a self-contained offering,
discussing all key methods and insights without descending into superfluous
technicalities. All explanations are structured in an accessible manner,
permitting any reader with a basic understanding of mathematics and finance
to work their way through all parts of the book without having to resort to
external sources.