Investigating Gold Investment as an Inflationary Hedge

Abstract

Gold and Indian culture have been sharing an age-old association. India is one of the top two consumers of gold. Gold is the most popular investment avenue because of its ability to provide liquidity. The average monthly price however has grown by 1,588 percent over the whole period from 1979 to 2017 (June). In this article, we intend to investigate gold as an investment to hedge against inflation. The sample period to study the relationship between gold and inflation is 2011–2017 (March). To analyze long-run equilibrium between gold and inflation (consumer price index [CPI]), Johansen’s cointegration approach has been used. The short- and long-run causality between gold and inflation has been studied using vector error correction model (VECM) and Wald test. The results of cointegration indicate that gold and CPI series are cointegrated and bear long-run equilibrium. Both VECM and Wald test results indicate that there is only long-run causality between CPI and gold prices. However, in short run these variables do not show any causality. Thus, we infer that gold investment can be used as hedge against Inflation. The findings of this research have got direct implications for retail investors, portfolio managers, treasury and fund managers, government, and commercial traders.