Part of a series, this volume comprises a selection of methodology-oriented papers presented at the 25th International Conference of the Applied Econometrics Association on International Commodity Market Modelling which took place at the World Bank, Washington, 1988. Economic and statistical analyses are obviously of great importance in studying commodity markets. A deep knowledge of market-clearing processes, the institutional structures of the industries related to each commodity market whether on the supply or demand side and the statistical methods of data handling for inference purposes are all needed in order to make good sense of the wealth of information on commodity market data. In addition, a technological understanding of the economic processes underlying each market is necessary. The agronomy of crop production, the techniques of crop distribution from harvest to end-use, the contributions of meteorology, the engineering of metallurgy, the engineering of processing factories, the combating of oil spills, the control of pollution and many other technological aspects of the different markets are essential for a good understanding of the forces at work in each case.
Also legal and political factors play roles in the markets and require some specialized knowledge of their effects. Almost every market is different and so a specialized technological background is required, but that adds much substance to the research. By fitting together appropriate cross-disciplinary bodies of information in commodity market studies, a high degree of interest and analytical challenge can be attained.