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In several recent IMF Staff Papers, researchers working on the development of world commodity prices show the statistical characteristics of a range of prices, describing them as stylized findings and associating them with a purely statistical definition of the life cycle of the price of a primary commodity. This paper contrasts in a synthetic manner this method of univariate and temporal analysis with the extensive prior literature that focuses on the analysis of the price and market dynamics of commodities. It demonstrates the value of referring instead to analytical stylized findings and offers five such findings that deal with a series of multi-annual price fluctuations, and two concerning the medium-term regulation of international markets.