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The gold price has a widespread influence on industry practitioners and country reserve managers. The market view on the gold price is also an integral part of the hedging programmes of mining companies and jewellers. Similarly, many studies have explored the roles of gold as an alternative asset for tactical trading or portfolio diversification and as a strategic asset in country reserve. In this thesis, the understanding of the economics of gold's return is advanced by studying the effects of monetary policy stance, macroeconomic, and financial variables on the gold price.;Some empirical studies have investigated the determinants of the gold price by modelling its changes in relation to the changes in macroeconomic and financial variables; these studies have generated mixed results, depending on the variables and sample periods chosen. Their divergence may also suggest the omission of other critical driving factors for the gold price.;Monetary conditions are considered as one of the gold price drivers. Most studies on the relationship between monetary policy and the gold price have used US interest rates as an indicator of monetary policy stance; however, interest rates may not be representative of money supply shocks in the post-crisis period. In the past, central banks that adopted standard monetary policy would increase the money supply by lowering interest rates; the gold price thus reacts positively due to increased market liquidity. However, during the past 9 years, compared with standard monetary policy, "unconventional monetary policy" has applied even greater influence on asset prices. In response to the lingering influence of the global financial crisis, the US Federal Reserve (US Fed) began implementing two unconventional monetary tools, namely forward guidance and quantitative easing (QE). QE is designed to be implemented when overnight interest rates are near zero and involves the US Fed buying long-term assets from commercial banks. This raises the money supply and asset prices and suppresses long-term yield. In the past few years, other major economies such as the United Kingdom, Eurozone, China, and Japan have also undertaken similar QE programmes. Therefore, whether and to what extent these unconventional monetary policy tools which are currently in effect may affect the gold price warrants examination.;The focuses and objectives of empirical studies have been varied; no studies have specifically examined the influence of international money supply. At the macro level, parameters have been heavily focused on data from the United States and European countries. Thus, previous studies may have been prone to a narrow focus on the United States or other factors. This thesis addresses these gaps in the literature.;In this study, an econometric analysis is performed to identify the determinants of the gold price. US dollar exchange rate is identified as the key variable for most of the sample period before the implementation of QE, among other factors. However, after the introduction of the unconventional monetary policy, international money supply became the most dominant factor. This study reveals that at times when there are drivers in force that would lead to a change in inflation or inflation expectation, the store of value property of gold is triggered and these price determinants dominate; as in the case of international money supply in the post-crisis period.

A partial equilibrium valuation model for a security, based on the idea of contingent claims analysis, was first developed by Black & Scholes. The model was considerably extended by Herton, who showed how the approach could be used to value liability instruments. Valuation models for default-free bonds, by treating them as contingent upon the value of the instantaneously riskfree interest rate, have been developed by Cox, Ingersoll & Ross, Brennan & Schwartz, Vasicek and Richards. There has, however, not been much attention directed towards the empirical testing of these valuation models of default-free bonds. This research is an attempt in that direction. Our attention is confined to retractable and extendible bonds. Central to arriving at any equilibrium model of bond valuation is the assumption about the instantaneously riskless interest rate process, since the bond value is treated as contingent upon it. These bond valuation models are partial equilibrium models, since the interest rate is assumed as exogenous to them. The choice of the interest rate process is made subject to some restrictions on its behaviour which are based on expected properties of interest rates. The interest rate process adopted in this study is a generalization of that used by Vasicek and Cox, Ingersoll & Ross., The properties of the chosen mathematical model are investigated to ascertain whether it conforms to those expected of an interest rate process based on economic reasoning. We go on to develop alternate estimation methods for the parameters of the interest rate process, using data on a realization of the process. One "exact" method and two others based on approximations are outlined. It is observed that the "exact" method is not available to the complete family of processes included in the continuous time stochastic specification assumed to model interest rates. The asymptotic properties of the estimators from the "exact" method are known from the existing literature. However, since we would have to adopt one of the approximate methods, we need to know something about the properties of the estimators based on these approaches. This could not be derived analytically and so a Monte Carlo study is conducted. The results seem to indicate that the properties of the estimators from the three methods are not very different. The yield to maturity on 91-day Canadian Federal Government Treasury bills, on the date of issue, is chosen as the proxy for the instantaneously riskfree interest rate. The impact of using such a proxy is briefly investigated and found to be negligible. The bond sample chosen is the complete issues of retractable and extendible bonds made by the Government of Canada. There were 20 issues between January 1959 and October 1975, and weekly prices on all these bonds are available in the Bank of Canada Review. To arrive at the final bond valuation equation, some assumptions are made about the term structure of interest rates. This study first assumes a form of the pure expectations hypothesis and it is shown that the performance of the model in predicting market price movements, is considerably improved when we assume a specific form of term/liquidity preference on the part of investors. Incorporating taxes into the model results in similar improvements. The hypothesis that the bond market is efficient to information contained in these models is tested and not rejected. Finally, an ad hoc regression based model is developed to serve as a bench mark for evaluating the performance of the partial equilibrium models. It is observed that these models perform atleast as well as the ad hoc model, and could be improved by relaxing some of the restrictive assumptions made. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

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The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of market power in the marketing chain of the broiler chicken, egg, and beef industries in Canada. The principal method of analysis tested for the existence of asymmetry. Supplementary testing included estimates of markup equations, means and coefficients of variation, elasticities of demand and price transmission, and correlation coefficients. / The findings give retailers market power in Montreal and Toronto for chicken, and in Toronto, Edmonton, and Winnipeg for beef. Vancouver retail prices for chicken and eggs were statistically independent of prices at the other levels. Processors dominated producers in the chicken markets of Montreal and Toronto, and the Winnipeg beef market. Producers showed possible dominance in the Montreal egg market. / Symmetry occurred most often in the beef and egg markets; which share the character of flat or declining consumer demand conditions. The ability to exercise market power may be determined by strong demand coupled with institutional price-responsiveness.

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Cover title: Major determinates of feeder cattle prices at Arizona livestock auctions. / "September 1972."/ "This study is part of Arizona's contribution to Western Regional Marketing Research Project, WM-62, entitled `Technological and Structural Changes in the Marketing of Beef."

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration