Export Cartels, Financial Speculation and Commodity Crises

2007-2008年间，一场粮食危机爆发，重要商品的价格平均上涨了40%。尽管这场危机的严重性是毋庸置疑的，尤其是对发展中国家而言，但到目前为止，人们对这场危机的根源以及人们可能希望如何缓解未来的危机知之甚少。将通过调查金融投机、出口卡特尔的形成和随后的大宗商品危机之间的联系来阐明这一问题。我们的初步工作表明，这一假设可能为危机的时机和严重性提供了一个新颖而令人信服的解释。该项目由四个工作包组成。首先，我们从理论上考察了金融投机与出口卡特尔的可持续性之间的关系。其次，我们研究了针对出口卡特尔的贸易政策和制度回应。第三，我们实证地探讨了金融投机在2007年全球化肥卡特尔形成和随后的粮食危机中的作用。最后，一个高度整合的一揽子工作方案将开发一个大宗商品市场的结构模型，其中包括投机和卡特尔形成，结合以前所有工作方案的结果。粮食投机是一种“丑闻”吗？(欧盟专员贝尼耶)应该是这样的，如果它导致高粮价导致发展中国家挨饿的话。目前关于金融在粮食危机中的作用的文献一般都在问，投机是否会增加食品价格与金融指数的联动性；结果一直不明确。我们认为，他们可能看错了地方：投机可能促成了全球化肥卡特尔的形成，而这正是在危机发生时发生的。化肥是工业食品生产的重要投入；在我们的初步工作中，我们估计这种成本冲击可能解释了危机时期价格上涨的近三分之二。贝多芬的呼吁为这一重要领域的研究提供了一个独特的机会，促进了金融经济学和计量经济学的研究经验(波兰)与国际贸易和工业组织(德国)的紧密结合。与我们在竞争法(意大利)和经验金融学(中国)方面的国际合作伙伴一起，我们期待着一个非常富有成果的项目。

In 2007-2008, a food crisis erupted and raised the prices of vital commodities by 40% on average. While the severity of the crisis, especially on the developing world, is undoubted, so far little is known about the root causes of the crisis and how one may hope to mitigate future ones. Will shed light on this issue, by investigating the connection between financial speculation, the formation of export cartels, and the subsequent commodity crisis. Our preliminary work indicates that this hypothesis may provide a novel and compelling explanation of both the timing and severity of the crisis.The project consists of four work packages. First, we investigate theoretically the relationship between financial speculation and the sustainability of an export cartel. Second, we study trade policy and institutional responses to export cartels. Third, we explore empirically the role of financial speculation on the formation of the global fertilizer cartel from 2007 and the subsequent food crisis. Finally, a highly-integrated work package will develop a structural model of the commodity market with speculation and cartel formation, combining results from all previous work packages.Is food speculation a "scandal" (EU Commissioner Bernier)? Supposedly so, if it causes high food prices that starve the developing world. The current literature on the role of finance in the food crisis has generally asked whether speculation increases the co-movement of food prices with financial indices; results have been ambiguous. We believe they may have looked in the wrong place: speculation may have contributed to the formation of a global cartel for fertilizer, which happened exactly at the crisis time. And fertilizer is an essential input to industrial food production; in our preliminary work, we estimate that this cost shock may explain nearly two-thirds of the crisis time price increase.The Beethoven call offers a unique opportunity for research in this important area, facilitating tight integration of research experience in financial economics and econometrics (Poland) with international trade and industrial organization (Germany). Together with our international collaborators in competition law (Italy) and empirical finance (China), we look forward to a very fruitful project.