We employ data over 2005-2009 which uniquely identify categories of traders to test whether speculators like hedge funds and swap dealers cause price changes or volatility. We find little evidence that speculators destabilize financial markets. To the contrary, speculative trading activity...

Trading by commodity index traders (CITs) has become an important aspect of financial markets over the past 10 years. We develop an equilibrium model of trader behavior that relates uninformed CIT trading to futures prices. The model predicts that CIT trading reduces the cost of hedging. We test...

We analyze the role of hedge fund, swap dealer and arbitrageur activity in a Markov regime-switching model between high volatility bear markets and low volatility bull markets for crude oil, corn and Mini-S&P500 index futures. We find that these institutional positions reflect fundamental...

The volatility of aggregate economic activity in the United States decreased markedly in the mid eighties. The decrease was diffused among several components of GDP and has been linked to a more stable economic environment, identified by smaller shocks and more effective policy, and a diverse...

OPEC producers, individually or collectively, often make statements regarding the “fair price” of crude oil. In some cases, the officials commenting are merely affirming the market price prevailing at the time. In many cases, however, we document that they explicitly disagree with...