(1/1/2015) This is the third and final installment of an interview on the outlook for the New Year.
Part 3. Forecasts for International Currency and Commodity Markets
Currency and Commodity Markets in 2015
Category Archives: commodities
Why Are So Many Commodity Prices Down in the US… Yet Up in Europe?
Oil prices plummeted 43% during the course of 2014 – good news for oil-importing countries, but bad news for Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other oil exporters. Some attribute the price drop to the US shale-energy boom. Others cite OPEC’s failure to agree on supply restrictions.
But that is not the whole story. The price of iron ore is down, too. So are gold, silver, and platinum prices. And the same is true of sugar, cotton, and soybean prices. In fact, most dollar commodity prices have fallen since the beginning of the year. Though a host of sector-specific factors affect the price of each commodity, the fact that the downswing is so broadly shared – as is often the case with big price swings – suggests that macroeconomic factors are at work.
Modi, Sisi & Jokowi: Three New Leaders Face the Challenge of Food & Fuel Subsidies
In few policy areas does good economics seem to conflict so dramatically with good politics as in the practice of subsidies to food and energy. Economics textbooks explain that these subsidies are lose-lose policies. In the political world that can sound like an ivory tower abstraction. But the issue of unaffordable subsidies happens to be front and center politically now, in a number of places around the world. Three major new leaders in particular are facing this challenge: Sisi in Egypt, Jokowi in Indonesia, and Modi in India.