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Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Capital Markets and Grain Prices: Assessing the Storage Cost Approach

Author(s): Wolfgang Keller, Carol Hua Shiue and Xin Wang

Publication Date: March 2018

Keyword(s): Asset Pricing, Capital market integration, grain storage and interest rates

Programme Area(s): Development Economics, Economic History and Financial Economics

Abstract: This paper evaluates a well-known approach from the economic history literature that uses grain prices to shed light on interest rates. Although this method has been applied in influential work starting with McCloskey and Nash (1984) and has potentially wide applicability in situations where interest rates are not available, this paper provides the first analysis of how well the storage cost approach captures actual capital market performance on a number of different dimensions. Using matched data on bank interest rates and grain prices for early 19th century U.S. regions, we find that the storage cost approach is useful for quantifying the performance of capital markets. The storage cost approach captures well regional differences in market performance, also in comparison to interest rate figures derived from the prices of bills of exchange. The paper also assesses the storage cost approach's robustness to measurement error, incomplete information, outliers, and other factors.

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Bibliographic Reference

Keller, W, Shiue, C and Wang, X. 2018. 'Capital Markets and Grain Prices: Assessing the Storage Cost Approach'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=12778