Commodities and Currencies Part II (Very Wonkish)

I’ve maintained that the decline in the Ringgit is largely a function of the decline in global oil prices. Here’s some proof (or to be more precise, corroborating evidence):

The above charts show daily price movements of a barrel of Brent crude (in USD terms) and the USD/MYR exchange rate (in MYR terms) since 2012. The graphs are fairly similar, with a positive correlation of 60.5% between the two series.

2011 Nobel Prize in Economics

…goes to Thomas Sargent and Chris Sims (excerpt):

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011

Press Release
10 October 2011

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2011 to

Thomas J. Sargent
New York University, New York, NY, USA

and

Christopher A. Sims
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

"for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy"

Clive Granger: RIP

I'm sorry I didn't catch the news sooner: modern econometrics would not be the same without his contributions, and for which he received the Nobel prize in 2003. Most of my masters thesis is based on the techniques developed on Granger's work with Robert Engle. While cointegration analysis has increased in both sophistication and complexity, this essential tool would not have been possible without Sir Clive's insight. Read his obit here.