Trend and Cycles in Coal and Oil Prices in the Long Run: A Schumpeterian Approach
Access Status
Authors
Date
2011Type
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
School
Collection
Abstract
We contribute to the task of identifying trends and cycles in energy prices by examining very long series of prices for coal and oil, going back to 1650 in the case of coal and 1859 in the case of oil. We find annual rates of increase in real price of greater than two percent are found for coal in one cycle, 1842 to 1897, and for oil in two cycles, 1897 to 1953 and 1953 to 2009. However, there is no noticeable change in coal prices for the earliest cycles, from 1675 to 1731 and 1731 to 1787, as well as a notable decline in the latest cycle, from 1953 to 2009. Also, oil prices decline from 1859 to 1897. Clearly, there is no unitary trend across coal and oil that would suggest a general failure of supply due to universal depletion of fossil fuels. Instead, the suggestion is that developments in technology are of critical importance. In particular, the shift in motive power from coal to oil is associated with a rise in the price of oil relative to coal and, in the most recent cycle, a trend decrease in the real coal price.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Kim, Yoochan ; Ghosh, Apurna ; Topal, Erkan ; Chang, Ping (2022)Understanding the interdependency of commodity market pricing system is very important for running a successful mining business. Much of the iron ore price is derived from the prices of other commodities. This study ...
-
Shafiee, S.; Topal, Erkan (2008)Crude oil, coal and gas, known as fossil fuels, play a crucial role in the global economy. This paper proposes new econometrics modelling to demonstrate the trend of fossil fuels consumption. The main variables affecting ...
-
Topal, Erkan; Shafiee, S. (2010)Crude oil, coal and gas, known as fossil fuels, are the main sources of world energy supply. Even though worldwide research has been conducted into other renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels, the global ...