Understanding the determinants of liquidity costs in agricultural futures markets is hampered by a need to use proxies for the bid-ask spread which are often biased, and by a failure to account for a jointly determined micro-market structure. We estimate liquidity costs and its determinants for...

Estimation of liquidity costs in futures markets is challenging because bid-ask spreads are usually not observed. Several estimators of liquidity costs exist that use transaction data, but there is little agreement on their relative accuracy and usefulness, and their performance has been...

We reassess the effect of new information in the Hogs and Pigs Reports (HPR) focusing on announcements’ rationality and alternative surprises. HPR announcements are irrational estimates of final estimates, and market expectations are irrational estimates of HPR numbers. Using the...

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...

Using literature-based measures and a modified Bayesian method specified here, we estimate liquidity costs and their determinants for the live cattle and hog futures markets. Volume and volatility are simultaneously determined and significantly related to the bid-ask spread. Daily volume is...

Colombia negotiated bilateral Trade Agreements (TAs) with the United States and with the MERCOSUR region (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). Colombian cattle and beef interest groups argue that TAs hurt the local beef supply chain. We employ a partial equilibrium framework to assess the...