Weekly live cattle prices in various markets would be expected
to share common trends, i.e., they cannot be driven by separate
nonstationarities because at some point the prices will diverge
sufficiently for it to be economic to cross-ship the cattle, or at
least the beef. This paper extends previous bivariate work to a
multivariate analysis that is capable of modeling the multiple
market linkages in prices for many geographical regions. The
empirical estimation represents the application of an innovation on
Aoki's Linear Systems State Space model that allows determination of
long- and short-run dynamics common to multiple series.
The common dynamics permit characterization of the multiple
markets with a limited number of states (sufficient statistics for
the past), resulting in dynamic arbitrage relations between the
series. A nonparametric test is used to evaluate the value of
expected arbitrage forecasts implied by the structure of the model.
The arbitrage relationship also is employed to generate efficient
discounts/premiums for either physical delivery or cash settlement of
futures contracts. The proposed settlement mechanism accounts for
spatial arbitrage opportunities and therefore better represents the
true geographical discounts faced by traders in individual markets.