A Survey of 50 Years of Commodity Price Analysis, and a Look Ahead to the Next 50

Commodity prices research examines how well prices reveal information, allocate resources, and transfer risk. This review surveys 50 years of work across 11 themes: price discovery, market integration and efficiency, price transmission, volatility spillovers, forecasting, derivatives and hedging, storability, futures convergence, financialization, policy effects and the informational value of USDA reports. Evidence points to nearly efficient markets, where cash and futures impound news quickly across markets related by space, time, and form. However, short-run frictions sometimes emerge. I discuss how data availability and machine learning will advance our understanding and highlight recent papers already pushing the envelope in this direction.