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The Effect of H1N1 (Swine Flu) Media Coverage on Agricultural Commodity Markets
Author(s) -
Attavanich Witsanu,
McCarl Bruce A.,
Bessler David
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
applied economic perspectives and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.4
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 2040-5804
pISSN - 2040-5790
DOI - 10.1093/aepp/ppr008
Subject(s) - futures contract , revenue , futures market , feeder cattle , commodity , agriculture , agricultural economics , autoregressive model , business , economics , monetary economics , agricultural science , financial economics , econometrics , finance , biology , ecology
The authors estimate the market impact of media coverage related to the name “swine flu,” relabeled subsequently as “2009 H1N1 flu,” on the future prices of lean hogs, live cattle, corn, and soybeans. They then quantified the revenue loss, employing the subset vector autoregressive model. The results indicate that the media coverage was associated with a significant and temporary negative impact on the futures prices of lean hogs, but with little impact on the other futures prices. The impact persisted for about four months, yielding an April–December 2009 market revenue loss of about $200 million (about 2.51 percent).