Most financial asset returns exhibit volatility persistence. We investigate this phenomenon in the context of daily returns in commodity futures markets. We show that the time gap between the arrival of news to the markets and the delivery time of futures contracts is the fundamental variable in...

Commodity cash and futures prices have been rising steadily since 2006. As evidenced by the April 2008 Commodity Futures Trading Commission Agricultural Forum, there is much concern among traditional futures and options market participants that the usefulness of commodity derivatives has been...

The main objective of this study is to compare the impacts of government payments and crop insurance policies on the use of futures and options measured from a downside risk hedge model with the impacts analyzed by the expected utility (EU) hedge model. Understanding the effects of...

Both prices and the volatility of storable agricultural commodity futures contracts have been rising since 2005 and particularly since 2007. This paper aims to answer two principal questions: (i) How has the behavior of these futures prices over time and across maturities changed with the rise...

We compare two regime-dependent econometric models for price transmission analysis, namely the threshold vector error correction model and Markov-switching vector error correction model. We first provide a detailed characterization of each of the models which is followed by a comprehensive...

Synchronized artificial insemination was used to inseminate cows using different types of sire genetics, including low-accuracy, calving-ease, and high-accuracy. These three calf sire groups were compared to calves born to cows bred using natural service. We found substantial production...

In 1997 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange replaced its live hog futures contract with a cash settlement mechanism based on a Lean Hog Index. Although cash settlement was expected to increase the use of the contract as a hedging tool, producers and packers are concerned that convergence between...

The cotton market in China is highly interactive with international markets, especially, the US market. The prices in these two markets can reveal important market relations. Investigating the data of futures prices from the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) and the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange...

Previous studies suggest that producers tend to store crops longer than makes economic sense. Since decisions to sell are irreversible, there can be a real option value from waiting to sell grain. This real option value may explain why producers appear to store too long. A seasonal mean...

This study focuses on hedging effectiveness defined as the proportionate price risk reduction created by hedging. By mathematical and simulation analysis we determine the following: (a) the regression R2 in the hedge ratio regression will generally overstate the amount of price risk reduction...