Recent booms and busts in commodity prices have placed renewed scrutiny on commodity futures markets as a mechanism for price discovery, the process of incorporating new information about the relative scarcity of the commodity into prices. Such concerns are not new; there has been some distrust of futures market price discovery since the inception of these markets. As these markets evolve, new market participants and institutions may influence price discovery. Using the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) cotton futures market as a laboratory, I consider three such forces potentially responsible for poor price discovery during the 2007-2011 period of volatile cotton prices. These are financial speculation, electronic trading, and funding constraints on commercial hedgers. In Chapter 1, I study whether the increased presence of financial firms, particularly commodity index traders, drives cotton futures prices away from the levels implied by supply and demand under rational expectations. I estimate a structural vector autoregression model of the cotton futures market. My model develops a new method to point identify shocks to precautionary demand for cotton separately from shocks to current supply and demand and separately identifies the effects of two types of speculation: precautionary demand for the commodity and financial speculation. I show empirically that most cotton price variation stems from contemporaneous unanticipated shocks to current cotton supply and demand. However, the 2008 price spike came from an increase in precautionary demand due to projections of lower future production. I find no evidence in support of claims that financial speculation causes commodity booms and busts.Chapter 2 considers the introduction of electronic trading to the cotton futures market across three periods of floor trade, parallel floor and electronic trade, and electronic-only trade. I statistically decompose intraday variation in cotton prices into a component related to information about market fundamentals and a ''pricing error'' caused by frictions in the trading mechanism. Better market quality or price discovery is characterized by lower variance of the pricing error. Unlike previous studies of floor and electronic trading, I consider more than average measures of market quality. I calculate statistics for market quality for each trading day, and study their trend, variance, persistence, and relationship to other variables related to price discovery. I find that market quality improved, but became more variable under electronic trading. This relationship between electronic trading and market quality is robust to controls for changes over time in the number of trades, trading volume, and price volatility.My final chapter considers the role of funding constraints in exacerbating futures price spikes. I review the experience of commercial hedgers during the 2008 cotton futures price spike. In this period, commercial hedgers without access to credit were forced to close futures positions in an illiquid market. Losses incurred on these trades led some firms to exit the cotton merchandising business. I use facts from the cotton case to develop a dynamic model of futures market equilibrium in the short-run for cases where funding constraints for some hedging firms bind and do not bind. Analytical results show that observed futures price volatility can be explained by the relation between funding liquidity of trading firms and market liquidity. This relationship alters the trading behavior of hedgers and results in diminished price discovery.

The efficiency of commodity futures markets is a widely debated topic in academia. The cotton futures market is no exception. The existence of trends in the futures market is characterized as a price bias, which is a testable trait. When analyzed, it allows a better understanding of market behavior and allows implementation of more effective income enhancing and/or risk reducing strategies. Three different approaches will be used to test the efficiency of the U.S. cotton futures market: pricing patterns, cointegration, and asset-pricing. In the first approach, pricing patterns, statistical methodology was applied to a dataset of daily futures prices. Returns did not show a consistent trend, supporting arguments of efficiency. Further research into seasonally-differentiated contracts has yielded strong evidence of declining prices. This result differs from previously published work in the most comprehensive study of futures prices, while updating and extending information on pricing patterns in the cotton futures market. Co-integration, the second approach, is a popular method for testing the efficiency of various commodity future and cash markets. Evidence indicates that the cotton futures and cash markets are co-integrated over the last ten years. Results lead to the conclusion that price is discovered in the cotton futures market, reinforcing the notion of an efficient cotton futures market that serves as an indicator for future cotton cash prices. The cotton futures market was also analyzed to explain price movements with an equilibrium asset-pricing framework, in the third approach. In particular, the cotton futures market was analyzed to determine if behavior displayed by the market could be explained by risks specific to the cotton futures contract. Cotton futures do not show significant risk premiums over other financial assets, again supporting the efficient market hypothesis. The three approaches implemented in this thesis are generally supportive of longrun efficiency in the U.S. cotton futures market. An updated analysis of the cotton futures market will allow market participants the most recent information on pricing patterns and the overall long-run behavior of the market. More effective trading and operating strategies can be implemented that will best meet needs of market participants.

This festschrift volume presents discussions on contemporary issues in international economics and finance. It is aimed to serve as a reference material for researchers. There are two broad sections of the book -- International Macroeconomics and International Finance. The chapters in the International Macroeconomics section discuss critical topics like aggregate level macro model for India with a new Keynesian perspective, balance of payments, service sector exports, foreign exchange constraints for import demands, foreign direct investment and knowledge spill over, the relationship between forex rate fluctuation and investment, Institutional quality-trade openness-economic growth nexus, currency crises and debt-deficit relationship in the BRICS countries in the backdrop of COVID-19. Apart from these, various analytical issues related to macroeconomic policies are also covered in this section. The topics discussed includes the nature of forex market interventions, the issue of disinvestment and privatization, changing nature of fiscal policy, the inflation-growth nexus, macroeconomic simulation modelling, measuring core inflation, central bank credibility, monetary policy, inflation targeting, Infrastructure, trade, unemployment and inequality nexus. In the International Finance section, topics such as COVID-19 induced financial crisis, commodity futures volatility, stock market connectivity, volatility persistence, determinants of sovereign bond yields, FII and stock market volatility, cryptocurrency price formation, financialization of Indian commodity market, and a Keynesian view of the financial crisis are discussed. Overall, thirty two chapters in the volume discuss cutting edge research in the areas of the two sections. A tour de force... a lucid guide to some of the diverse and complex issues in International Macroeconomics and Finance. This collection of scholarly works is a fitting tribute to respected Prof. Bandi Kamaiah and his enviable academic contributions. - Prof. Y V Reddy, Former Governor, Reserve Bank of India This volume comprising thoughtful essays by our leading scholars on some of important policy issues that India is facing is indeed a rich tribute to Professor Bandi Kamaiah . This book will greatly benefit the academic community as well as our policy makers. - Prof. Vijay Kelkar, Chairman, 13th Finance Commission of India; Chairman, India Development Foundation, Mumbai, India Noted economists from India and abroad gather to apply the rigorous searchlight that Professor Bandi Kamaiah used so effectively in his career. Major current topics in macroeconomics and international finance are effectively explored in the volume. - Prof. Ashima Goyal, Emeritus Professor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India; and Member, Monetary Policy Committee of Reserve Bank of India This volume of 32 papers in macroeconomics, international economics, and international finance is intended as a tribute to the eminent econometrician , Prof B Kamaiah. Post-graduate students and researchers will find much valuable literature in the volume, which is a fitting tribute to Prof Kamaiah. The editors and authors deserve rich compliments. - Prof. K L Krishna, Former Director, Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi, India I am so happy to hear that Dr. Kamaiah's colleagues and ex-students are bringing out a special volume of articles in his honor. Nothing can be more appropriate. Dr. Kamaiah, being a man of tremendous publications, deserves this tribute. I wish all the luck and success to the new book. - Prof. Kishore Kulkarni, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA