In this paper we propose an endogenous growth model of commodity-rich economies in which: (i) long-run (steady-state) growth is endogenous and yet independent of commodity prices; (ii) commodity prices affect short-run growth through transitional dynamics; and (iii) the status of net commodity importer/exporter is endogenous. We argue that these predictions are consistent with historical eviden...

Financial returns, although seemingly unpredictable, have been successfully modelled using market and macro-economic factors. The effect of these factors, however, may vary with time and only be statistically significant for specific periods. This paper utilises factors that have been found to capture financial market returns and applies them to the modelling of a broad set of commodities. A ch...

Using the longest dataset publicly available (The Economist’s index of industrial commodity prices), we analyze the behavior of real commodity prices over the period 1862–1999 and have two main findings. First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long-run trend decline in c...

The entry price of supercomputing has traditionally been very high. As processing elements, operating systems, and switch technology become cheap commodity parts, building a powerful supercomputer at a fraction of the price of a proprietary system becomes realistic. We have recently purchased, in support of both our local and national collaborations, a dedicated computational cluster of eight D...