Chapter 1 - The world cotton market - Cotton prices
The price of cotton, adjusted for inflation, is tending downward over the long run. This is a phenomenon common to many primary commodity industries and results naturally and inevitably from market forces in a competitive world economy. If inflation is considered, cotton prices have been falling since the 1950s. Estimates of average prices were more than $3 per pound of lint in today’s dollars in the early 1950s, prices fell to $1–2 in the 1970s, and the average Cotlook A Index in 2006/07 is about 58 cents per pound (see figure 1.26). In nominal prices, or not adjusted for inflation, the Cotlook A Index averaged 70 cents per pound during the 30-year period from 1973/74 through 2002/03 (see figure 1.27). However, while there is always substantial year-to-year variation, average cotton prices during the current decade are forecast to be 10–20 cents per pound lower than the average of the last 30 years.
Source: ICAC