Hedging Price Risk with Options and Futures for the Competitive Firm with Production Flexibility

When some input decisions can be made after price is realized, separation between production and hedging decisions still holds only under limited circumstances. Under the assumption of a restricted profit function that is quadratic in price, the optimal futures hedge of a risk averse firm equals expected output and a short straddle position is desirable assuming that futures and options prices are unbiased. In this case the use of options not only raises expected utility by reducing income risk, but in general also affects the firm input decisions.