TY - JOUR
T1 - The Prebisch-Singer hypothesis
T2 - Four centuries of evidence
AU - Kellard, David I.
AU - Kellard, Neil M.
AU - Madsen, Jakob B.
AU - Wohar, Mark E.
PY - 2010/5/1
Y1 - 2010/5/1
N2 - We employ a unique data set and new time-series techniques to reexamine the existence of trends in relative primary commodity prices. The data set comprises 25 commodities and provides a new historical perspective, spanning the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. New tests for the trend function, robust to the order of integration of the series, are applied to the data. Results show that eleven price series present a significant and downward trend over all or some fraction of the sample period. In the very long run, a secular, deteriorating trend is a relevant phenomenon for a significant proportion of primary commodities.
AB - We employ a unique data set and new time-series techniques to reexamine the existence of trends in relative primary commodity prices. The data set comprises 25 commodities and provides a new historical perspective, spanning the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. New tests for the trend function, robust to the order of integration of the series, are applied to the data. Results show that eleven price series present a significant and downward trend over all or some fraction of the sample period. In the very long run, a secular, deteriorating trend is a relevant phenomenon for a significant proportion of primary commodities.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955148324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1162/rest.2010.12184
DO - 10.1162/rest.2010.12184
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77955148324
VL - 92
SP - 367
EP - 377
JO - The Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - The Review of Economics and Statistics
SN - 0034-6535
IS - 2
ER -