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Market efficiency and unbiasedness tests are performed for the first time for three forest commodity futures markets: softwood lumber, oriented strand board (OSB), and northern bleached softwood kraft pulp (NBSK). The Johansen cointegration procedure is applied to test long-term market efficiency, while the standard error correction models (ECM) and ECM with GQARCH-in-mean process are also used to examine short-term market efficiency and unbiasedness. Results show that these markets are inefficient and biased in both the long-term and short-term. Results also indicate that no short-term time-varying risk premiums are found in these commodity futures markets.

Foreign exchange hedging ratios are simultaneously estimated alongside freight and commodity ratios in a time-varying portfolio framework. Foreign exchange futures are found to be by far the most important derivative instrument to be employed in order to reduce uncertainty for traders. Our results lend support to the decision by LIFFE to cease trading the BIFFEX freight futures contract because of its low levels of trading activity, which likely resulted from its apparent unattractiveness as a hedging instrument.

This paper presents an effective way of combining two popular, yet distinct approaches used in the hedging literature - dynamic programming (DP) and time-series (GARCH) econometrics. Theoretically consistent yet realistic and tractable models are developed for traders interested in hedging a portfolio. Results from a bootstrapping experiment used to construct confidence bands around the competing portfolios suggest that while DP-GARCH outperforms the GARCH approach they are statistically equivalent to the OLS approach when the markets are stable. Significant gains may be achieved by a trader, however, by adopting the DP-GARCH model over the OLS approach when markets exhibit excessive volatility.

In many studies the assumption is made that traders only encounter one type of price risk. In reality, however, traders are exposed to multiple price risks, and often have several relevant derivative instruments available with which to hedge price uncertainty. In this study, commodity, foreign exchange, and freight futures contracts are analyzed for their effectiveness in reducing price uncertainty for international grain traders. A theoretical model is developed for a representative European importer to depict a realistic trading problem encountered by an international grain trading corporation exposed to more than one type of price risk. The traditional method of estimating hedge ratios by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is compared to the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) and the multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) methodology, which takes into account time-varying variances and covariances between the cash and futures markets. Explicit modeling of the time-variation in futures hedge ratios via the MGARCH methodology, using all derivatives and taking into account dependencies between markets results in a significant reduction in price risk for grain traders. The results also confirm that the unique, but underutilized, freight futures market is a potentially useful mechanism for reducing price uncertainty for international grain traders. The research undertaken in this study provides valuable information about reducing price uncertainty for international grain traders and gives a better understanding of the linkages between closely related markets.

This paper tests for both long run and short run market efficiency and unbiasedness in five agricultural futures markets. The possible existence of constant and time varying risk premia are taken into account using cointegration procedures and error correction models within a GARCH framework.