This research examines the lead-lag relationships between futures prices, prices from a cash forward market, and spot prices for two forest product markets. Results suggest that for 2x4 lumber, the forward market provides some level of price discovery, but futures play a dominant price discovery...

The storage at a loss paradox - inventories despite an inadequate spot-futures price spread to cover storage costs - is an unresolved issue of long-standing interest to economists. Alternative explanations include risk premiums for futures market speculators, convenience yields from holding...

The hog option contract has served as a risk management tool for the pork industry for more than 20 years. However, very limited information exists about how this market behaves and how it was affected by the contract redesign of 1996. This paper evaluates the efficiency of hog options markets...

We model a futures exchange's clearinghouse as a "bank" holding a portfolio of credit lines available to its clearing members and collateralized with clearing margins or, equivalently, a portfolio of short European put basket options. Consequently, the "bank" model measures the clearinghouse's...