Skewness Aversion, Output Uncertainty and Hedging in a Futures Market

Abstract

This paper presents a simple theoretical equilibrium model for the competitive commodity futures market where the agents face both price and output uncertainty. Three groups of agents, producers, entrepreneurs and speculators are introduced. A three-moment expected utility function is applied which accounts for both volatility and negative skewness aversion (prudence). We show that negative skewness aversion reduces the hedging incentive of the producer (farmer) and in some cases causes the latter to enter speculative positions in a futures market. In addition, we show that in presence of agents with three-moment expected utility function an equilibrium futures price is positively biased estimator of the expected market price in comparisson to the classical case of agents with mean-variance preferences.

Keywords: Skewness Aversion, Output Uncertainty, Futures Pricing, Speculators

JEL Classification: D81, G13