Futures Markets and Production Decisions
研究企业如何利用期货价格制定生产决策，提出一个与偏好无关的生产规则，并与简单的“边际成本等于期货价格”规则比较，利用农业数据检验产出不确定性的影响。
This paper investigates the use of futures prices in making production decisions. We derive a preference-independent production rule for firms that face both demand and production uncertainty. This rule is compared to a simple "marginal cost equals future price" rule, which previously has been suggested for firms with deterministic output. Data for agricultural producers are used to examine the importance of output uncertainty in the determination of the proper production rule. Our analysis suggests that for many crops the simple rule is sufficiently accurate to be a useful guide to production.