Understanding Return And Volatility Spillovers Among Major Agricultural Commodities

We provide comprehensive evidence of return and volatility spillovers for the four major agricultural commodities including sugar, wheat, corn and cotton over the recent period 2003-2010. Our results from the recent VAR-GARCH model of Ling and McAleer (2003) that allows for simultaneous shock transmissions of conditional volatilities of returns across commodities show the existence of substantial volatility spillover linkages between agricultural commodity returns and volatilities. Our findings are also particularly insightful for optimal portfolio designs and risk management through the computation of optimal weights and hedge ratios.