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Abstract
Futures markets have two main goals: price discovery and risk management. Because management
decisions often have to be made on a time horizon longer than the time until expiration of the
nearby futures contract, it is important to determine how well distant-delivery futures contracts
are able to assist in price discovery. We focus on soybean and live cattle distant-delivery futures
contracts and test for the informational value added to nearby contracts. Two tests for information
value provide partially conflicting results due to the different information measures employed. If
being able to predict the price trend is sufficient, then we find some information value in distantdelivery
futures contracts, while if accurate point estimates of future spot prices are desired the
results are negative. Surprisingly, we do not find the expected dichotomy between the storable
(soybeans) and non-storable (cattle) commodities.