IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-12-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Informational Role of Spot Prices and Inventories

Author

Listed:
  • Smith, James L.

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Thompson, Rex

Abstract

We examine the role that spot markets and physical inventories play in revealing to uninformed traders the expectations of informed traders. Although many papers investigate potential mechanisms by which futures markets may disseminate such information, the role of spot markets has not been examined in comparable detail. Because the incentive for speculative trading in futures contracts stems from the failure of spot markets to eliminate differences in beliefs regarding future market conditions, the scope for speculative trading in the futures market is therefore determined, but also limited, by the extent to which spot market transactions disseminate private information. Using a rational expectations approach, we show that equilibrium differences in beliefs are determined by specific characteristics of the underlying commodity, including storage costs, the amplitude of unexpected demand and supply shocks, the accuracy of information acquired by informed investors, the numbers of informed and uninformed investors, and the elasticity of demand and supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, James L. & Thompson, Rex, 2012. "The Informational Role of Spot Prices and Inventories," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-45, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-12-45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-12-45.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tirole, Jean, 1982. "On the Possibility of Speculation under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1163-1181, September.
    2. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    3. Sanford J. Grossman, 1977. "The Existence of Futures Markets, Noisy Rational Expectations and Informational Externalities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 431-449.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lutz Kilian, 2014. "Oil Price Shocks: Causes and Consequences," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 133-154, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Dubra & Helios Herrera, 2002. "Market Participation, Information and Volatility," Working Papers 0206, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    2. Garcia, René, 1986. "La théorie économique de l’information : exposé synthétique de la littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 62(1), pages 88-109, mars.
    3. Alexander Zimper, 2017. "Rationalizable Information Equilibria," Working Papers 201745, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    4. Ehsan Ahmed & J. Rosser & Jamshed Uppal, 2014. "Are there nonlinear speculative bubbles in commodities prices?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 415-438.
    5. Colin A. Carter & Gordon C. Rausser & Aaron Smith, 2011. "Commodity Booms and Busts," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 87-118, October.
    6. Seiler, Volker, 2024. "The relationship between Chinese and FOB prices of rare earth elements – Evidence in the time and frequency domain," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 160-179.
    7. R. Andergassen, 2003. "Rational destabilising speculation and the riding of bubbles," Working Papers 475, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Burda, Michael C. & Zessner-Spitzenberg, Leopold, 2024. "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Price-Driven Growth in a Solow-Swan Economy with an Environmental Limit," IZA Discussion Papers 16771, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Dale W. Henderson & Stephen W. Salant, 1976. "Market anticipations, government policy, and the price of gold," International Finance Discussion Papers 81, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Hillebrand, Marten & Kikuchi, Tomoo, 2015. "A mechanism for booms and busts in housing prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 204-217.
    11. Hala Abu-Kalla & Ruslana Rachel Palatnik & Ofira Ayalon & Mordechai Shechter, 2020. "Hoard or Exploit? Intergenerational Allocation of Exhaustible Natural Resources," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel, 2020. "Reply to “Rational Bubbles in UK Housing Markets”," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1767-1770, July.
    13. John Baffes & Cristina Savescu, 2014. "Monetary conditions and metal prices," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(7), pages 447-452, May.
    14. John Geanakoplos, 1993. "Common Knowledge," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1062, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    15. Habib, Michel A. & Johnsen, D. Bruce & Naik, Narayan Y., 1997. "Spinoffs and Information," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 153-176, April.
    16. Johannes Stroebel, 2016. "EconomicDynamics Interview: Johannes Stroebel on real estate dynamics," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), November.
    17. Estelle Cantillon & Aurélie Slechten, 2018. "Information Aggregation in Emissions Markets with Abatement," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 132, pages 53-79.
    18. Siebert, Horst, 1982. "Das intertemporale Angebot eines ressourcenabbauenden Unternehmens," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 3563, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Paul Welfens & Jens Perret & Deniz Erdem, 2010. "Global economic sustainability indicator: analysis and policy options for the Copenhagen process," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 153-185, August.
    20. Eduardo Ley & Molly K. Macauley & Stephen W. Salant, "undated". "Spatially and intertemporally efficient waste management: The costs of interstate flow control," Working Papers 97-07, FEDEA.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    futures trading; speculation; inventories; private information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-12-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.