This research compares partial equilibrium and statistical time-series approaches to hedging. The finance literature stresses the former approach, while the applied economics literature has focused on the latter. We compare the out-of-sample hedging effectiveness of the two approaches when...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of a new futures contract for hedging wholesale transactions in the beef industry based on the USDA boxed beef cutout index (BBCO). The results suggest the live cattle futures contract is not an adequate tool to manage the price risk of...

The ability to accurately forecast basis is crucial to risk management strategies employed by many agribusiness firms. Previous research has examined how to effectively use basis forecasts and what factors affect basis, but literature focusing on forecasting basis is sparse. This research...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pricing performance of agricultural market advisory services in hogs. Pricing recommendations are available for all quarters from the beginning of 1995 through the end of 2001. The results show that average differences between advisory programs and...

In settings where there is imperfect information about an underlying state of nature, but where inferences are made sequentially and are publicly observable, information cascades can lead to rational herding. Cascade phenomena may be seen in a variety of areas including technology adoption,...

Although there is little academic research that supports the usefulness of technical analysis, its use remains widespread in commodity markets. Much prior research into technical analysis suffered from data-snooping biases. Using genetic programming, ex ante optimal technical trading strategies...

Previous research has estimated price effects of meat packing plant closings and openings. However, none have been done for plants opening or closing during the last 20 years ago when concentration in meatpacking increased rapidly. Plant openings and closings affect industry slaughtering...

Options with different maturities can be used to generate volatility estimates for non-overlapping future time intervals. This paper develops the term structure of volatility implied by corn futures options, and evaluates the informational content of the implied forward volatility as a predictor...

Hedge ratio estimation studies avoid estimating hedge ratios for imminently maturing futures contracts because of the maturity effect whereby futures price volatility increases as price uncertainty is resolved at contract expiration. This study first points out that a futures-price volatility...