Russia’s invasion of Ukraine increased the synchronisation of global commodity prices

Abstract

The Russian Federation’s efforts to expand its regional political influence culminated in launching a full-scale war of aggression on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. As both countries are large exporters of commodities crucial for global food and energy security, the resulting abrupt supply chains disruptions created substantial uncertainty in commodity markets worldwide. This study quantifies to what extent this major shock induced global commodity prices to move more synchronously by gauging their time-varying comovement. Using the concordance index, it analyses the development of 15 key global commodity price indices from January 2010 to July 2022. We find that the supply chains disruptions increased synchronisation of grain, energy and fertiliser prices at the global level in direction and magnitude. Moreover, they resulted in contagion across numerous food and non-food markets, creating a global covariate shock to food and energy security. Notably, the increased synchronisation at broad scale restricts the ability of consumers to mitigate the adverse effects of food and energy price inflation by resorting to inexpensive alternatives. Hence, policymakers must improve the resilience of global food supply chains sustainably such that adverse effects of attaining the Sustainable Development Goals in crises can be minimised.