Relationships among Prices across Alternative Marketing Arrangements for Fed Cattle and Hogs

Reduced reliance on cash market prices for fed cattle and hogs raise questions about the role of cash prices in price discovery. We use seven years of weekly data from mandatory price reports to determine whether or not cash market prices are cointegrated with other procurement prices and then test for causality among the price series. Cash prices were cointegrated with all but one procurement price series. Cash market prices Granger cause all other procurement prices. Bidirectional causality was found in some but not all cases. Thus, cash market prices remain of central importance in price discovery for fed cattle and hogs.