An empirical methodology is developed for statistically testing the hedging effectiveness among competing futures contracts. The presented methodology is based on the encompassing principle, widely used in the forecasting literature, and applied here to minimum variance hedging regressions....

USDA and Cooperative Extension Service forecasts of hog prices are directly tested for incremental value vis-à-vis futures-based forecasts in a forecast encompassing framework. At horizons less than six months, the lean hog futures-based forecast is found to be more accurate than both the USDA...

While the combination of several or more models is often found to improve forecasts (Brandt and Bessler, Min and Zellner, Norwood and Schroeder), hypothesis tests are typically conducted using a single model approach 1 . Hypothesis tests and forecasts have similar goals; they seek to define a...

Model selection is often conducted by ranking models by their out-of-sample forecast error. Such criteria only incorporate information about the expected value, whereas models usually describe the entire probability distribution. Hence, researchers may desire a criteria evaluating the...

Recent accusations against speculators in general and long-only commodity index funds inparticular, include: increasing market volatility, distorting historical price relationships, andfueling a rapid increase and decrease in commodity inflation. Some researchers have argued thatthese market...

Recent accusations against speculators in general and long-only commodity index funds in particular, include: increasing market volatility, distorting historical price relationships, and fueling a rapid increase and decrease in commodity inflation. Some researchers have argued that these market...