Modeling volatility and dependence of European carbon and energy prices

Abstract

We study the prices of European Emission Allowances (EUA), whereby we analyze their uncertainty and dependencies on related energy prices (natural gas, coal, and oil). We propose a probabilistic multivariate conditional time series model with a VECM-Copula-GARCH structure which exploits key characteristics of the data. Data are normalized with respect to inflation and carbon emissions to allow for proper cross-series evaluation. The forecasting performance is evaluated in an extensive rolling-window forecasting study, covering eight years out-of-sample. We discuss our findings for both levels- and log-transformed data, focusing on time-varying correlations, and in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.