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Abstract
A rational expectations storage model is used to simulate monthly corn prices, which
are used to evaluate marketing strategies to manage price risk. The data are generated and
analyzed in two formats: for long-run outcomes over 10,000 “years” of monthly prices and for
10,000 cases of 40-year “lifetimes.” Three categories of strategies are analyzed: frequency of
post-harvest cash sales, unconditional hedges, and conditional hedges. The comparisons are
based on the simulated probability distributions of net returns. One conclusion is that
diversifying cash sales, without hedging, is not an efficient means of risk management.
Unhedged storage does not reduce risk and, on average, reduces returns. The analysis of the 40-
year lifetimes demonstrates, however, that rational decision-makers can face “lucky” and
“unlucky” time periods. Thus, although the long-run analysis suggests that routine hedging
reduces the variance (and the mean) of returns compared to the base case of selling in the spot
market at harvest, the variance of returns (and their means) from both strategies will vary from
lifetime to lifetime. Efficient strategies for producers with increasing utility functions vary from
lifetime to lifetime, suggesting that efficient strategies likely vary from year-to-year.
Nonetheless, strategies that take advantage of locking in returns to storage when relative prices
are favorable are efficient in the second-degree sense and appear robust across different
lifetimes. We also illustrate that conclusions are influenced by the measure of risk used.
Perhaps the major conclusion is, however, that risk-management analysis is complex and
potentially filled with pitfalls.