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Inventories and the short-run dynamics of commodity prices

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  • Pindyck, Robert S.
Abstract
Competitive producers hold inventories to reduce costs of adjusting production and to reduce marketing costs by facilitating scheduling and avoiding stockouts. Using data for copper, heating oil, and lumber, I estimate these costs within a structural model of production, sales, and storage, and I study their implications for inventory and price behavior. Unlike earlier studies, this work focuses on homogeneous and fungible commodities. This avoids aggregation problems, and it allows the use of direct measures of units produced, rather than inferences from dollar sales. Also, I estimate Euler equations and allow the marginal value of storage to be a convex function of the stock. This fits the data better, and helps explain the role of storage. Finally, I use futures prices to directly measure the marginal value of storage. I find a production-smoothing role for inventories only for heating oil, and during periods of low or normal prices. A more important role is to reduce marketing costs.
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Suggested Citation

  • Pindyck, Robert S., 1990. "Inventories and the short-run dynamics of commodity prices," Working papers 3133-90., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:mit:sloanp:2297
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/2297
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    1. Fair, Ray C., 1989. "The production-smoothing model is alive and well," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 353-370, November.
    2. Miron, Jeffrey A & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1988. "Seasonality, Cost Shocks, and the Production Smoothing Models of Inventories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 877-908, July.
    3. Ramey, Valerie A. & West, Kenneth D., 1999. "Inventories," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 863-923, Elsevier.
    4. Alan S. Blinder, 1986. "Can the Production Smoothing Model of Inventory Behavior be Saved?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 431-453.
    5. Blinder, Alan S, 1982. "Inventories and Sticky Prices: More on the Microfoundations of Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 334-348, June.
    6. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Suslow, Valerie Y, 1985. "Inventories as an Asset: The Volatility of Copper Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(2), pages 409-424, June.
    7. West, Kenneth D, 1986. "A Variance Bounds Test of the Linear Quadratic Inventory Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 374-401, April.
    8. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1983. "The Production and Inventory Behavior of the American Automobile Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 365-400, June.
    9. Ramey, Valerie A, 1989. "Inventories as Factors of Production and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 338-354, June.
    10. Eichenbaum, Martin, 1989. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Production Level and Production Cost Smoothing Models of Inventory Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 853-864, September.
    11. Williams, Jeffrey, 1987. "Futures Markets: A Consequences of Risk Aversion or Transactions Costs?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1000-1023, October.
    12. Eichenbaum, Martin S., 1984. "Rational expectations and the smoothing properties of inventories of finished goods," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-96, July.
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    19. Cox, John C. & Ingersoll, Jonathan Jr. & Ross, Stephen A., 1981. "The relation between forward prices and futures prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 321-346, December.
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    HD28 .M414 no.3133-; 90;

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