Thesis (M.Sc. ( Agricultural Economics )) --University of Limpopo, 2005 / The deregulation of agricultural markets in South Africa led to the establishment of a futures market for agricultural products, which was opened in January 1995. The marketing of Agricultural products act No. 47 of 1996 was passed at the end of 1996. The new Marketing of Agricultural Products Act (Act No. 47 of 1996) in South Africa has created an environment in which farmers, traders and processors are able to react positively to transparent prices that are market related. Agricultural futures markets serve several important functions, such as price risk management, price discovery and forward pricing. Economists around the world have studied vertical and spatial price relationships, and the behaviour of price changes in futures markets using asymmetry tests. Price asymmetry results in futures markets have a number of important implications. Firstly, traditional models in time series may be slightly biased when forecasting future prices, because they assume price symmetry. Secondly, asymmetry results may imply that the weak-form efficient markets hypothesis appears to be contradicted, thus indicating that past prices do affect current prices and do contain information. Lastly, if persistent asymmetry is found in futures markets, market regulators and policy makers may wish to use asymmetric information to improve the functioning and stability of futures markets through improved price limit and margin policies. Implementing policies iv accounting for asymmetric behaviour may help avoid market crashes and sudden unexpected price adjustments adversely affecting market participants. This study tests the existence of price asymmetry in South African futures markets for white and yellow maize, wheat and sunflower seeds using a dynamic price asymmetry model. The sum of coefficients test and the speed of adjustment test are used to determine whether or not prices move up in the same fashion as they move down, over daily and weekly data frequencies. Out of the four commodity futures markets studied over varying data frequencies, only daily wheat is price asymmetric. Wheat daily prices respond faster to price decreases than to price increases. The implication of the results is that past prices do affect current prices and contain information. Hence, the weak-form efficient market hypothesis appears to be contradicted for wheat futures market. Another important implication of the results is that implementing policies accounting for asymmetric behavior through price limit and margin policies will improve the functioning and stability of wheat futures market in South Africa. / National Research Foundation, and the University of Limpopo

Agriculture is of inestimable value to South Africa because it is a major source of job creation and plays a key role in earning foreign exchange. The most significant contribution of agriculture, and in particular maize, is its ability to provide food for the nation. For a number of decades government legislation determined prices, and as such the trade of grains on the futures exchange requires market participants to adapt to a volatile environment. The research focuses on the ability of market participants to effectively mitigate price volatility on the futures exchange through the use of derivative instruments, and the possibility of developing risk management strategies that will outperform the return offered by the market. The study shows that market participants are unable to use derivative instruments in such a way that price volatility is minimised. The findings of the study also indicate that the development of derivative risk management strategies could result in better returns than those offered by the market, mainly by exploiting trends on the futures market. / Financial Accounting / M. Comm. (Business Management)

In the literature there are mixed results on the link between credit and agricultural output growth. Some authors argue that credit leads to growth in agricultural output. Others view growth as one of the factors that influence credit supply, thus growth leads and credit follows. By and large, studies have not endeavoured to establish the short-run impact of agricultural credit on output. They are generally limited in establishing the long-run relationship between credit and agricultural output and thus present a research gap in this respect. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by focusing on the finance-growth nexus at sectoral level as a departure from extant literature that has focused on the macroeconomic level. Using South African data, the study investigated the causal relationship between the supply of credit and agricultural output as well as whether the two are cointegrated and have a short-run relationship. The study found that bank credit and agricultural output are cointegrated. Using the error correction model (ECM), the results showed that, in the short-run, bank credit has a negative impact on agricultural output, reflecting the uncertainties of institutional credit in South Africa. However, the ECM coefficient shows that the supply of agricultural credit rapidly adjusts to short-term disturbances, indicating that there is no room for tardiness in the agricultural sector. The absence of institutional credit will immediately be replaced by availability of other credit facilities from non-institutional sources. Conventional Granger causality tests show unidirectional causality from (1) bank credit to agricultural output growth, (2) agricultural output to capital formation, (3) agricultural output to labour, (4) capital formation to credit, and (5) capital formation to labour, and a bi-directional causality between credit and labour. Noteworthy and significant for South Africa is that for the agricultural sector, the direction of causality is from finance to growth, in other words supply-leading, whereas at the macroeconomic level, the direction of causality is from economic growth to finance, in other words, demand-leading. Applying a structural equation modelling approach to survey data of smallholder farmers, the positive relationship between bank credit and agricultural output observed from analysis of secondary data was confirmed. / Business Management / DCOM (Business Management)

In the literature there are mixed results on the link between credit and agricultural output growth. Some authors argue that credit leads to growth in agricultural output. Others view growth as one of the factors that influence credit supply, thus growth leads and credit follows. By and large, studies have not endeavoured to establish the short-run impact of agricultural credit on output. They are generally limited in establishing the long-run relationship between credit and agricultural output and thus present a research gap in this respect. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by focusing on the finance-growth nexus at sectoral level as a departure from extant literature that has focused on the macroeconomic level. Using South African data, the study investigated the causal relationship between the supply of credit and agricultural output as well as whether the two are cointegrated and have a short-run relationship. The study found that bank credit and agricultural output are cointegrated. Using the error correction model (ECM), the results showed that, in the short-run, bank credit has a negative impact on agricultural output, reflecting the uncertainties of institutional credit in South Africa. However, the ECM coefficient shows that the supply of agricultural credit rapidly adjusts to short-term disturbances, indicating that there is no room for tardiness in the agricultural sector. The absence of institutional credit will immediately be replaced by availability of other credit facilities from non-institutional sources. Conventional Granger causality tests show unidirectional causality from (1) bank credit to agricultural output growth, (2) agricultural output to capital formation, (3) agricultural output to labour, (4) capital formation to credit, and (5) capital formation to labour, and a bi-directional causality between credit and labour. Noteworthy and significant for South Africa is that for the agricultural sector, the direction of causality is from finance to growth, in other words supply-leading, whereas at the macroeconomic level, the direction of causality is from economic growth to finance, in other words, demand-leading. Applying a structural equation modelling approach to survey data of smallholder farmers, the positive relationship between bank credit and agricultural output observed from analysis of secondary data was confirmed. / Business Management / D. Com. (Business Management)

Agriculture is of inestimable value to South Africa because it is a major source of job creation and plays a key role in earning foreign exchange. The most significant contribution of agriculture, and in particular maize, is its ability to provide food for the nation. For a number of decades government legislation determined prices, and as such the trade of grains on the futures exchange requires market participants to adapt to a volatile environment. The research focuses on the ability of market participants to effectively mitigate price volatility on the futures exchange through the use of derivative instruments, and the possibility of developing risk management strategies that will outperform the return offered by the market. The study shows that market participants are unable to use derivative instruments in such a way that price volatility is minimised. The findings of the study also indicate that the development of derivative risk management strategies could result in better returns than those offered by the market, mainly by exploiting trends on the futures market. / Financial Accounting / M. Comm. (Business Management)