The Efficiency of the Chinese Commodity Futures Markets： Development and Empirical Evidence

I. Introduction In the early 1980s China set about transforming its moribund economy by adopting, in stages, various elements of the market-based systems. Among the reforms were thederegulation of prices and the introduction of financial markets for assets. The first stock market was set up in Shanghai in 1991 and in the same year the first commodities market opened in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Since then, both the stock market and the commodities futures markets have expanded substantiall…

The Efficiency of the Chinese Commodity Futures Markets: Development and Empirical Evidence

This study investigates the efficiency of the Chinese metal futures (i. e. copper and aluminum) traded on China's Shanghai Futures Exchange. First, we thoroughly analyze the development of China's commodity futures markets, which provides a fundamental background. Then we examine the random walk and unbiasedness hypotheses for two metal futures during 1999–2004. Based on the empirical evidence, we argue that China's copper and aluminum futures markets are efficient, and that they aid the process of price discovery because futures prices can be considered as unbiased predictors of future spot prices. We attribute this efficiency to the regulatory changes made in 1999 and the increased financial skills and acumen of the participants in the market. Edited by Xiaoming Feng