Assessing commodity price risks and terms of trade exposures in emerging and developing countries

Abstract

This paper provides novel evidence on commodity exposure (impacts of commodity price and terms of trade fluctuations) amongst 46 emerging and developing countries (EMDCs) in Africa, Asia and the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. We focus on the exposures of six macroeconomic variables to the commodity prices and terms of trade, based on the real business cycle (RBC) theory. Our empirical results indicate that, overall, about 10% of the macroeconomic variation amongst the EMDCs is due to commodity market-related exposures. The Asian and LAC economies are especially sensitive to changes in commodity prices. The changes in the prices of world trade have an imminent impact on non-commodity exporting EMDCs. In sum, our results indicate that the commodity market exposure is not unanimous across countries, amongst regions or between measures of exposure.