Research

My lifelong fascination with commodity markets started as a young boy tagging along with my father to check the latest prices from ‘Chicago’ at our local grain elevator. I have had the good fortune of being able to continue research on these ever changing markets for my entire professional career. Specific research interests include price analysis and forecasting, forecast evaluation, performance of market advisory services, agricultural risk management, commodity market efficiency, and the behavior and role of speculators in commodity markets. My focus has always been on research that (hopefully) addresses timely and relevant questions of broad interest to market participants, regulators, and policymakers. A notable example is AgMAS, a long-term research project to provide unbiased and rigorous performance evaluations of agricultural market advisory services. The research results have been widely-used by U.S. farmers in deciding whether to subscribe to an advisory service and have also provided the foundation for a new generation of grain market ‘averaging’ contracts.

This section includes links to my most recent research publications and presentations. Many of my conference papers can be found at the AgEcon Search and NCCC-134 websites.

Recently Published Journal Articles (View All Articles)

Devil or Angel? The Role of Speculation in the Recent Commodity Price Boom (and Bust) Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 41(2009):377-391.

The Marketing Performance of Illinois and Kansas Wheat Producers Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 41(2009): 177-191.

Smart Money? The Forecasting Ability of CFTC Large Traders in Agricultural Futures Markets Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 34(2009): 276-296.

Forthcoming Journal Articles

The Adequacy of Speculation in Agricultural Futures Markets: Too Much of a Good Thing? Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy

A Reality Check on Technical Trading Rule Profits in US Futures Markets Journal of Futures Markets

Outlook vs. Futures: Three Decades of Evidence in Hog and Cattle Markets American Journal of Agricultural Economics

A Speculative Bubble in Commodity Futures Prices? Cross-Sectional Evidence Agricultural Economics

Is Storage at a Loss Merely an Illusion of Aggregation? Journal of Agribusiness

Working Papers

Are Agricultural Options Too Expensive? (Nov 2009)

Spreads and Non-Convergence in CBOT Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures: Are Index Funds to Blame? (Nov 2009)

Bubbles, Froth, and Facts: The Impact of Index Funds on Commodity Futures Prices (Nov 2009)

Quantile Regression Estimates of Confidence Intervals for WASDE Price Forecasts (Sep 2009)

Empirical Confidence Intervals for USDA Commodity Price Forecasts (Aug 2009)

Hog Options: Contract Redesign and Market Efficiency (Jul 2009)

Should Farmers Follow the Recommendations of Market Advisory Services? A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach to Estimation of Expected Performance (Jul 2009)

Improving the Accuracy of Outlook Price Forecasts (Jun 2009)

Live and Feeder Cattle Options Markets: Returns, Risk, and Volatility Forecasting (Jun 2009)

Do Composite Procedures Really Improve the Accuracy of Outlook Forecasts? (Jun 2009)

Behavioral Biases in Grain Marketing: Evidence from Market Advisory Service Recommendations (Jan 2009)

How to Hedge Selectively: A Bayesian Approach (Nov 2008)

Do Big Crops Get Bigger and Small Crops Get Smaller? Further Evidence on Smoothing in USDA Crop Production Forecasts (Oct 2008)

Forecast Performance of Futures Price Models for Corn, Soybeans, and Wheat (Oct 2007)

The Profitability of Technical Trading Rules in US Futures Markets:A Data Mining Free Test (May 2005)

Does the Market Anticipate Smoothing in USDA Crop Production Forecasts? (Aug 2004)

Heterogeneity in Economic Behavior (May 2004)

farmdoc Publication Series

Marketing & Outlook Briefs (View Archived Publications)

2009 Corn Yield Prospects Continue to Improve (Aug 2009)

2009 Soybean Yield Prospects Improving (Aug 2009)

Marketing & Outlook Research Reports (View Archived Publications)

Poor Convergence Performance of CBOT Corn, Soybean and Wheat Futures Contracts: Causes and Solutions (Mar 2009)

AgMAS Reports (View Archived Publications)

Advisory Service Marketing Profiles for Soybeans over 2002-2004 (Jun 2006)

Miscellaneous Publications

Index Funds and Commodity Prices... Here We Go Again (Jul 2009) Guest blog post at Econbrowser

Comments on Permanent Senate Subcommittee on Investigations Report "Excessive Speculation in the Wheat Market" (Jul 2009)

Market Instability in a New Era of Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Prices (Apr 2009)
Choices, 1st Quarter 2009, 24(1)

The Misadventures of Mr. Masters: Act II (Sep 2008)
Guest blog post at Econbrowser

Futures Imperfect (Jul 2008)
Op-Ed in the New York Times

Is Speculation by Long-Only Index Funds Harmful to Commodity Markets? (Jul 2008)
Testimony Prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture

Recent Convergence Performance of CBOT Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures Contracts (Jul 2008)
Choices, 2nd Quarter 2008, 23(2)

Recent Delivery Performance of CBOT Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures Contracts (Apr 2008)
Statement to the CFTC Agricultural Forum

Commodity Arbitrage (Apr 2008)
Guest blog post at Econbrowser

The Performance of Chicago Board of Trade Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures Contracts after Recent Changes in Speculative Limits (May 2007)

Presentations

New Paradigms in Marketing: Are Speculators or the Fundamentals Driving Prices? (Mar 2009)
National Extension Risk Management Education Conference, Reno, NV

Recent Delivery Performance of CME Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Futures Contracts (Dec 2008)
The CFTC/Farm Foundation/USDA academic roundtable on grain futures convergence issues, Washington, D.C.

Devil or Angel: The Role of Speculation in the Recent Commodity Price Boom (Nov 2008)
Farrell Distinguished Public Policy Lecture, Department of Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

300 Bushels in Every Field? The Rising Debate about Corn Trend Yields (Apr 2008)
34th James C. Snyder Lecture to the Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University

Outlook vs. Futures: Three Decades of Evidence in Hog and Cattle Markets (Mar 2008)
Invited paper presented at the Information, Policy, and the Food System Conference, Washington, DC.

What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago about Writing and Submitting Journal Articles (Jul 2007)
Organized symposium presentation at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association. The session was entitled, " Guidelines on Writing and Submitting Journal Articles."

Writing Competitive, Outstanding Proposals (Jul 2005)
Organized Symposium Presentation at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association. The session was entitled, "Preparing Social Science Research Proposals: Competing with Small Fish in a Big Pond, or Small Fish in a Small Pond?"