A Bibliometric Review of Palm Oil Price Volatility and Its Macroeconomic Impacts in Southeast Asia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58812/wsis.v3i08.2174Keywords:
Palm Oil, Price Volatility, Macroeconomic Impact, Southeast Asia, Bibliometric AnalysisAbstract
Palm oil plays a pivotal role in the economic landscape of Southeast Asia, particularly in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where it significantly contributes to GDP, employment, and trade revenues. However, the volatility of palm oil prices presents persistent challenges, affecting macroeconomic stability, food security, and policy planning. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the scholarly literature on palm oil price volatility and its macroeconomic impacts, focusing on Southeast Asia from 2000 to 2024. Using the Scopus database and VOSviewer software, the analysis reveals key thematic clusters centered on economic costs, price dynamics, biofuel policy, and financial spillover effects. The results show a growing interdisciplinary trend, with research expanding from core economic modeling toward sustainability and energy policy frameworks. Overlay and density visualizations indicate a temporal shift in research focus from volatility analysis to broader systemic and policy-related issues. Despite the increasing depth and diversity of the literature, significant gaps remain, particularly in addressing the socio-environmental dimensions and the real-world impacts on smallholder farmers and national policy. This review not only maps the intellectual structure of the field but also offers critical insights for future research and evidence-based policymaking in the global palm oil economy.
References
[1] D. Lestari and S. Oktavilia, “Analysis of palm oil price in Southeast Asia,” AFEBI Econ. Financ. Rev., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 63–78, 2020.
[2] T. K. Vu and H. Nakata, “Oil price fluctuations and the small open economies of Southeast Asia: An analysis using vector autoregression with block exogeneity,” J. Asian Econ., vol. 54, pp. 1–21, 2018.
[3] M. I. Abd Jalil, S. U. S. A. Kadir, S. Lada, J. J. William, and A. A. Hamzah, “The impact of macroeconomic variables on crude palm oil price in Malaysia”.
[4] K. Ahmed, M. Zain, A. M. Noor, A. R. Alsaadi, M. Milhem, and A. Ahmad, “The impact of macroeconomic variables on commodity futures prices: An evidence from Malaysian crude palm oil futures,” Eur. J. Mol. Clin. Med., vol. 7, no. 06, pp. 2095–2105, 2020.
[5] M. S. Sabri, N. Khalid, A. H. M. Azam, and T. Sarmidi, “Impact Analysis of the External Shocks on the Prices of Malaysian Crude Palm Oil: Evidence from a Structural Vector Autoregressive Model,” Mathematics, vol. 10, no. 23, p. 4599, 2022.
[6] M. A. M. Isa et al., “Crude palm oil price fluctuation in Malaysia,” Int. J. Acad. Res. Bus. Soc. Sci., vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 879–892, 2020.
[7] W. Saijai, S. Chanaim, and S. Thongkairat, “The Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Sudden GDP and Commodity Price Changes on Inflation Using Markov-Switching Model: Insights from Six Southeast Asian Countries,” in Applications of Optimal Transport to Economics and Related Topics, Springer, 2024, pp. 331–345.
[8] K.-P. Lim, K.-L. Goh, and C.-S. Chong, “The Effects of Global Commodity Prices on ASEAN-5 Stock Markets,” J. Contemp. Soc. Sci. Humanit., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 96–108, 2021.
[9] T. Voituriez, “What explains price volatility changes in commodity markets? Answers from the world palm‐oil market⋆,” Agric. Econ., vol. 25, no. 2‐3, pp. 295–301, 2001.
[10] D. Bergmann, D. O’Connor, and A. Thümmel, “An analysis of price and volatility transmission in butter, palm oil and crude oil markets,” Agric. Food Econ., vol. 4, no. 1, p. 23, 2016.
[11] R. Haron and M. A. Salami, “Malaysian crude palm oil market volatility: a GARCH approach,” Int. J. Econ. Manag., vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 103–120, 2015.
[12] N. N. Kamil and S. F. Omar, “Climate variability and its impact on the palm oil industry,” Oil Palm Ind. Econ. J., vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 18–30, 2016.
[13] M. J. B. I. N. A. B. U. BAKAR, “THE EFFECTS OF MACROECONOMICS AND FINANCIAL STABILITY ON PURCHASING POWER COMPETITIVENESS IN MALAYSIA AND THAILAND,” 2022.
[14] N. Donthu, S. Kumar, D. Mukherjee, N. Pandey, and W. M. Lim, “How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines,” J. Bus. Res., vol. 133, pp. 285–296, 2021.
[15] H. Kasivisvanathan, A. T. Ubando, D. K. S. Ng, and R. R. Tan, “Robust optimization for process synthesis and design of multifunctional energy systems with uncertainties,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., vol. 53, no. 8, pp. 3196–3209, 2014.
[16] C. Karyotis and S. Alijani, “Soft commodities and the global financial crisis: Implications for the economy, resources and institutions,” Res. Int. Bus. Financ., vol. 37, pp. 350–359, 2016.
[17] S. Raghuvaran, B. Ashok, B. Veluchamy, and N. Ganesh, “Evaluation of performance and exhaust emission of CI diesel engine fuel with palm oil biodiesel using an artificial neural network,” Mater. Today Proc., vol. 37, pp. 1107–1111, 2021.
[18] A. Dutta, E. Bouri, T. Saeed, and X. V. Vo, “Crude oil volatility and the biodiesel feedstock market in Malaysia during the 2014 oil price decline and the COVID-19 outbreak,” Fuel, vol. 292, p. 120221, 2021.
[19] G. Chandrarin, K. Sohag, D. S. Cahyaningsih, D. Yuniawan, and H. Herdhayinta, “The response of exchange rate to coal price, palm oil price, and inflation in Indonesia: Tail dependence analysis,” Resour. Policy, vol. 77, p. 102750, 2022.
[20] I. O. Fasanya and T. F. Odudu, “Modeling return and volatility spillovers among food prices in Nigeria,” J. Agric. Food Res., vol. 2, p. 100029, 2020.
[21] G. S. Uddin, J. A. Hernandez, C. Wadström, A. Dutta, and A. Ahmed, “Do uncertainties affect biofuel prices?,” Biomass and Bioenergy, vol. 148, p. 106006, 2021.
[22] Y.-H. Go and W.-Y. Lau, “The impact of global financial crisis on informational efficiency: Evidence from price-volume relation in crude palm oil futures market,” J. Commod. Mark., vol. 17, p. 100081, 2020.
[23] T. Kiatmanaroch and S. Sriboonchitta, “Relationship between exchange rates, palm oil prices, and crude oil prices: a vine copula based GARCH approach,” in Modeling Dependence in Econometrics: Selected Papers of the Seventh International Conference of the Thailand Econometric Society, Faculty of Economics, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, January 8-10, 2014, Springer, 2014, pp. 399–413.
[24] D. Sheil et al., “The impacts and opportunities of oil palm in Southeast Asia: What do we know and what do we need to know?,” 2009.
[25] M. Ekananda, “Role of macroeconomic determinants on the natural resource commodity prices: Indonesia futures volatility,” Resour. Policy, vol. 78, p. 102815, 2022.
[26] A. Sanusi and F. S. Singagerda, “World oil price shocks in macroeconomic ASEAN+ 3 countries: Measurement of risk management and decision-making a linear dynamic panel approach,” Int. J. Energy Econ. Policy, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 75–83, 2021.
[27] A. ARINTOKO, “The stock price response of palm oil companies to industry and economic fundamentals,” J. Asian Financ. Econ. Bus., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 99–110, 2021.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Loso Judijanto

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.








