A speculative security is an asset whose payoff depends on a random shock uncorrelated with economic fundamentals (a sunspot) about which some traders have superior information. In this paper we show that agents may find it desirable to trade such a security in spite of the fact that it is a poorer hedge against their endowment risks as the time of trade, and has an associated adverse selection cost. In the specific institutional setting of innovation of futures contracts, we show that a futures exchange may not have an incentive to introduce a speculative security even when all traders favor it.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number
223.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies
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