Market efficiency and price risk management of agricultural commodity prices in India

Purpose Market efficiency leads to transparent and fair price discovery of commodity markets, thus enhancing the value chain for competitive benefit. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the market efficiency of Indian agricultural commodities at spot, futures and mandi markets apart from exploring price risk management in these markets. Design/methodology/approach This study uses Johansen co-integration, vector error correction model and granger causality for analyzing market efficiency of the nine most liquid agricultural commodities across three markets, namely, spot, futures and mandi. All these nine commodities are traded on National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange. Findings The statistical results indicate price discovery exists in the mandi market and spot market leading to futures prices. Mandi price returns are seen to negatively influence futures returns in the case of cotton seed, guar seed and spot returns in the case of jeera, coriander and chana. For castor seed, the three markets are seen to have no long run relationship. The results of Granger causality reveal short run relationship between all the three markets in the case of soybean seed and coriander. In these commodities, prices in all three markets are capable of predicting the prices in the other markets. For the case of cottonseed, Rape Mustard seed, jeera, guar seed, the results indicate unidirectional causality between the mandi markets and the other two markets. Research limitations/implications These results shall facilitate policymakers to explore intervention through integrated agri-platform (IAP) in price discovery and market efficiency. Practical implications The results of this study are useful in understanding the price discovery of mandi markets and its role in the spot and futures market. Agricultural commodities price discovery depends upon the integration of all these three markets. Introduction of IAP as described in the paper shall facilitate price risk management apart from improving the efficiency of price discovery. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study considering mandi, spot and futures prices in the price discovery process in India. In addition, this study found the role of mandi markets in serving the economic function of price discovery and price risk management. Hence, suggests for policy intervention for Indian agricultural commodities to manage price risk.