The statistical forecasting efficiency of new crop corn and soybean futures is the topic of frequent academic inquiry. However, few studies address the usefulness of these forecasts to economic agents? decision making. Each year Central Illinois producers are faced with the decision to plant...

Economists and others need estimates of future cash price volatility to use in risk management evaluation and education programs. This paper evaluates the performance of alternative volatility forecasts for fed cattle, feeder cattle, and corn cash price returns. Forecasts include time series...

Long-only commodity index funds have been blamed by other futures market participants for inflating commodity prices, increasing market volatility, and distorting historical price relationships. Much of this criticism is leveled without any formal empirical support or even cursory data analyses....

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...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures andover–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the resultthat prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded fundamental values at the peak.The...