Portal Red Investigadores de Economía

In this work, an analysis is made of the dynamic response to most relevant basic commodity prices for the evolution of inflation for the consumer in Colombia due to shocks in a group of determining factors. The document is based on structural vector autoregression (VAR) models in which the external shocks are identified by restricting contemporaneous effects between the variables of the system. Quarterly data for the period from the first quarter of 1980 to the third quarter of 2010 was used for the calculation. In accordance with the results, monetary policy, the multilateral exchange rate of the United States of America and the GDP of developed and emerging countries explain a considerable percentage of the prognostic error variance of basic commodity prices. Furthermore, in general terms, the response of the prices due to a monetary policy shock is negative, instantaneous and statistically significant. Shocks to the exchange rate show a negative association with the prices, although not always significant, and in the majority of cases the real activity variables, both in developed countries and in the emerging ones has a positive relationship with the prices considered. © 2012 Banco de la República de Colombia.

Factors Determining the International Prices of Basic Commodities [Determinantes de los precios internacionales de los bienes básicos]