What Drives How Much Crop Producers Sell in Spot, Forward, and Futures Markets?

Crop producers have numerous marketing and risk management tools available. Research relating producers’ risk attitudes to their use of these tools has produced mixed results, and most studies focus on individual tools to the neglect of complementarities among them. Hence, little is known about the proportion in which these tools are used, e.g., the percentage of the crop that is forward sold as opposed to hedged. This study identifies some factors, including risk attitude, that impact the proportion of corn producers’ sales through spot markets, futures and options, and forward and production contracts using complementary survey and accounting data.