Why Some Futures Contracts Succeed and Others Fail: A Survey of Relevant Research

Why do some futures contract succeed and others fail? Numerous researchers have provided case studies on both new and existing futures contracts, so this paper is fortunate to have a wealth of material from which to directly cite. Accordingly, this article will survey a number of textbooks, trade publications, academic papers, and think-tank articles from which one can distill lessons from over 160 years of (largely) U.S. experience with commodity trading. It turns out that even though the U.S. futures markets have evolved in a trial-and-error fashion, one can nonetheless identify the key elements that determined whether particular futures contracts succeeded or failed.