We theoretically examine a farmer’s coverage demand with area and individual insurance plans as either separate or integrated options. The individual and area losses are assumed to be imperfectly and positively correlated. With actuarially fair rates, the farmer will fully insure with the...

The commodity bull cycle of 2006-2008 and subsequent dramatic price decline have been a source of hardship for traditional commodity market participants such as producers and merchant/shippers. The usefulness of futures markets has been called into question, especially given that some market...

This paper investigates the dynamics of sequential decision-making in agricultural futures and options markets using a quantile regression framework. Analysis of trading records of 12 traders suggests that there is great heterogeneity in individual trading behavior. Traders respond differently...

Hedging effectiveness is the proportion of price risk removed through hedging. Empirical hedging studies typically estimate a set of risk minimizing hedge ratios, estimate the hedging effectiveness statistic, apply the estimated hedge ratios to a second group of data, and examine the robustness...

Futures prices when combined with a basis forecast provide a reliable way to forecast cash prices. The most popular method of forecasting basis is historical moving averages. Given the recent failure of longer moving averages proposed by previous studies, this research reassesses past...

Corn and wheat cash prices in Kansas are affected by a number of local supply-demand, market structure, transportation access and other factors. Kansas corn prices in 2008 were affected by form of business organization, local feedgrain production and livestock feed usage, elevator storage...

We study the difference in the volatility dynamics of CBOT corn, soybeans, and oats futures prices across different delivery horizons via the smoothed Bayesian estimator of Karali, Dorfman, and Thurman (2010). We show that the futures price volatilities in these markets are affected by the...

This study develops a multi-crop insurance model which is employed to evaluate crop insurance decisions when several crops are produced jointly. The results suggest that the diversification effects derived from producing multiple crops can substantially alter the risk reduction impacts of crop...

Taken together, studies that examine how well commodity futures markets perform find that risk premiums are common—and so unbiasedness is not—and markets are not uniformly efficient across commodities or forecast horizons. This large body of research sheds important light on whether and to...

Includes: Front Cover, Table of Contents, Editorial Information