Studying trends in the inflation-adjusted prices of 30 commodities, David Jacks finds that prices of both energy and non-energy commodities overall have been rising since 1950. He also uncovers a pattern of super-cycles -- decades in which prices exceed their long-run trends because of unusually strong demand. In fact, half of the commodities in his sample are in the midst of such super-cycles, with prices having begun to rise above trend somewhere between 1994 and 1999. There also have been periods of boom and bust in prices over the long run – he analyzes 160 years of data -- especially during periods of freely floating nominal exchange rates, and particularly over the past 40 years.