Commodity prices in the 1970s

This article, which has been prepared by CA Enoch and M Panic of the Bank's Economics Division, examines the behaviour of certain commodity prices during the 1970s, and compares this with the experience of the two previous decades. The increases in commodity prices during the 1972-74 boom were unprecedently large; and whereas when prices had previously risen sharply they had soon fallen back, by the end of the 1970s commodity prices were generally higher than they had been in 1972-74. In the 1970s commodity prices seem to have responded more quickly and sharply than before to changes in economic activity; econometric evidence for this is provided in the appendix to the article.

Commodity prices in the 1970s