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WEO Data Forum > real vs. nominal commodity prices


 
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ggertz real vs. nominal commodity prices
I am trying to find real price data for rice, maize, and wheat, 1980-current. Do the individual commodity price indexes in the WEO April 2008 database give real or nominal prices? If these are not inflation-adjusted, can you suggest what the appropriate deflator would be? Thanks a lot. 		4/24/2008 10:39:49 AM
WEOmoderator Re : real vs. nominal commodity prices
The commodity prices in the WEO database are all nominal.

As for potential deflators, here are a couple that have been used in a WEO:
1) In Figure 5.4 of the April 2008 WEO, commodity prices are deflated by manufactures unit value (MUV) from UNCTAD's Handbook of Statistics database at http://www.unctad.org/templates/page.asp?intitemid=1890&lang=1 (see Chapter 5's appendix for more info).
2) In Figure 5.2 of the September 2006 WEO, commodity prices are deflated by U.S. CPI in addition to MUV. I presume U.S. CPI data were used since they are available from 1957 - you could use World CPI data instead if you are only interested in going back to 1980. 		4/24/2008 2:34:51 PM