COTTON FUTURES EXCHANGES: THEIR PAST,THEIR PRESENT AND THEIR FUTURE

摘要

Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries a number of cotton futures exchanges have been in operation in both developingand developed countries. The New York Cotton Exchange is the longest running exchange with continuous operation formore than 130 years. This paper examines the conditions under which these exchanges were developed as well as the reasonsthey ceased to operate ranging from lack of interest by hedgers and speculators to outright government prohibition. Thepaper also discusses a number of new initiatives that are under way and assesses the probability that at least one of them willbecome a successful operation.The views expressed here are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the views of the World Bank or theEuropean Investment Bank. Most of the research was carried out while Ioannis Kaltsas was with the International CottonAdvisory Committee. We would like to thank Michael Corbin for excellent research assistance; Gershon Feder, DonaldMitchell, Garry Pursell, and Hans Timmer for comments on an earlier draft; Christophe Baranicka, Beno't Blarel, Ray Butler,Mario DaSilva, Ji Ding, Severin Kodderitzsch, Susan Lai, Olivier Matringe, Mary Ann Ogasawara, Selda Sehirlioglu, DinaUmali-Deininger, Panos Varangis, Jan Wellmann, and Xiao Yang for providing important information.