The Impact Effect of Coal Price Fluctuations on China’s Agricultural Product Price

Abstract

Few studies have used China’s latest economic data to verify the interaction between coal price fluctuation and vegetable price fluctuation. Therefore, the sharing of existing knowledge in the academic community is mainly reflected in this paper, which explores the influence between coal prices and agricultural product prices for the first time. Further, it supplements the verification of the effective parameters of vegetable price fluctuation in academia. The current study investigates the relationship between coal prices (thermal coal price) and agricultural product prices (vegetable prices) in China from 2016 to 2021. It uses separate time-series models to verify the effect of China’s coal price fluctuation on the price of agricultural products and explores the effect of the coal price on the vegetables’ price trend. The results confirm that the thermal coal price significantly impacts and positively affects vegetable prices. There is also a linkage between the price of coal and the security of agricultural products. It might mainly be due to coal usage in various stages of the growing, storage, transportation, and distribution of agricultural products. Higher coal prices may lead to higher agricultural prices, threatening China’s coal-dominant energy structure. These higher coal prices will endanger domestic energy security and agricultural security. Finally, this study also suggests ways to manage the effect of increased coal prices on agricultural product prices and then puts forward policy suggestions.