---
title: "From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run"
authors: "David S. Jacks"
source: "NBER Working Paper 18874 / Cliometrica"
source_url: "https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18874/revisions/w18874.rev1.pdf"
paper_id: "NBER w18874 (2013); Cliometrica 13(2), 205–230 (2019)"
harvested: 2026-09-01
year: 2013
keywords: [commodity prices, real prices, CPI deflator, index rebasing, long run, staples]
pdf_url: "https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18874/revisions/w18874.rev1.pdf"
---
## Abstract

The definitive long-run typology of real commodity prices: 40 commodities (representing $8.72T of production in 2011) across 1900–2015, with individual prices deflated by US CPI and aggregated into indices. Documents three distinct phenomena: long-run trends (energy and precious metals as secular "gainers"; grains and soft commodities as "losers"), medium-run cycles, and short-run boom/bust episodes. The paper's standard display convention is **index rebasing** (1900 = 100) — the profession's answer to the "tiny de-dollarized numbers" problem: normalize to a base year rather than showing raw ratios.

## Why it's in the StratMac library

- The **index-rebase (base = 100) alternative** to the expenditure-share rescale — the other candidate from the staples-card discussion; kept on file so both approaches are documented.
- Confirms the energy-as-gainer / food-as-loser long-run structure that the SM staple cards display in de-dollarized form.
- Its CPI-deflation method is the complementary lens to SM's GDP-deflation: real price (CPI-denominated) vs. output share (GDP-denominated).