Title: Do crude oil prices spillover food prices? Evidence for Asia and Pacific countries

Authors: Fardous Alom

Addresses: Department of Economics, Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Science, International Islamic University Malaysia, Gombak Campus, Jalan Gombak, P.O. Box 10, 50728 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: This study investigates the mean and volatility spillover effects of world crude oil prices on the food prices for selected Asia and Pacific countries employing vector autoregression (VAR) and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-family models over 2 January 1995 to 30 April 2010. The findings suggest that the oil prices positively influence food prices of the selected countries both in mean and in volatility. Stronger mean and volatility spillover effects are found for the recent subsample period suggesting increasing interdependence between world crude oil and Asia-Pacific food markets in recent times. In terms of mean spillover effects net food importer countries' food price show stronger effects to the shocks, whereas in terms of volatility spillover effects no distinction in absorbing the oil price shocks can be made between exporters and importers. The findings recommend that crude oil prices should be taken into consideration in policy preparation and forecasting purposes for food prices.

Keywords: crude oil prices; food prices; mean spillover; volatility spillover; spillover effects; Asia Pacific countries; VAR; GARCH; food markets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETP.2015.069103

International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, 2015 Vol.11 No.1, pp.68 - 96

Received: 12 Jun 2014
Accepted: 05 Feb 2015

Published online: 27 Apr 2015 *

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