Time-varying correlations in oil, gas and CO2 prices: an application using BEKK, CCC and DCC-MGARCH models

Previous literature has identified oil and gas prices as being the main drivers of CO2 prices in a univariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) econometric framework (Alberola et al., 2008; Oberndorfer, 2009). By contrast, we argue in this article that the interrelationships between energy and emissions markets shall be modelled in a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and Multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) framework, so as to reflect the dynamics of the correlations between the oil, gas and CO2 variables overtime. Using the Baba-Engle-Kraft-Kroner (BEKK), Constant Conditional Correlation (CCC) and Dynamic Conditional Correlation MGARCH (DCC-MGARCH) models on daily data from April 2005 to December 2008, we highlight significant own-volatility, cross-volatility spillovers, and own persistent volatility effects for nearly all markets, indicating the presence of strong Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH) and GARCH effects. Besides, we provide strong empirical evidence of time-varying correlations in the range of [-0.3; 0.3] between oil and gas, [-0.05; 0.05] between oil and CO2, and [-0.2; 0.2] between gas and CO2, that have not been considered by previous studies. These findings are of interest for traders and utilities in the energy sector, but also for a broader applied economics audience.