Coal Pricing in China: Is It a Bit Too Crude?

China is a global leader in methanol production volume, while coal major feedstock. The country also has the world’s largest commercial coal-to-methanol operations. Coal-based used widely within and competitive substitute for gasoline. Owing to this, it plausible that price of may be linked international crude oil prices, with prices serving as connecting channel. We add supporting evidence recently emerging area literature observe statistically significant relationships among three and, therefore, influence from on determination China. This paper investigates these period January 2010 December 2019 through spectral Granger causality analysis, alongside more traditional cointegration tests develop comprehensive picture causal association between series both frequency time domain. Cointegration found our tri-variate system domain reveal long-run all directions except methanol, thus, emphasizing structure dependence. According generalized impulse response functions, reacts positively shocks prices.