Multiscale dynamic interdependency between China’s crude oil futures and petrochemical-related commodity futures: An integrated perspective from the industry chain system

Abstract

This paper examines the coupling of China’s petrochemical-related commodity futures from the perspective of an integrated system as well as the multiscale interdependency between this system and Shanghai crude oil futures (SCM) with two globally influential benchmarks, i.e., Brent and WTI, as comparisons. Our methods innovatively build on the multifractal theory and provide in-depth analysis across various time scales. The results show the dynamic coupling of China’s oil industry chain system (ICS) can reflect its level of systemic risk concentration well. The greater the time scale, the stronger the coupling. The abrupt deterioration of the external economic environment enhanced the impact of crude oil on the ICS, but the impact from SCM increased the most. Furthermore, the higher dependency preference of ICS for SCM confirms the effectiveness of this emerging futures market in reflecting domestic oil supply and demand but continuously weakens as the time scale increases, indicating the dominance of Brent and WTI in the long run.