Towards a framework to understand purpose in Futures Studies: The role of Vickers' Appreciative System

There have been comments recently about the efficacy of Futures Studies (and scenario planning) projects, relating to confusion on knowledge aggregation and methodology, which can be summarised in the question: “how to determine the purpose of such projects”. The lack of a purpose framework makes it difficult for ‘clients’ initiating such projects to determine if outcomes meet their original expectations. This paper proposes a framework to help understand the nature, objective and purpose of Futures Studies (and scenario planning) projects, which we will argue helps to overcome these concerns. The proposed framework is based on Vickers' definition of an Appreciative System, highlighting how decision making involves three areas of judgment — reality judgment, value judgment, and instrumental judgment. It will be argued that decision-makers and policymakers call for Futures Studies projects when they become aware of an organizational deficiency in one or more of these areas.Each element, alone or in combination, could form the basis of a purpose definition for a Futures Studies project, and, therefore, needs to be considered to ensure that the project meets client expectations and is experienced as purposeful and rewarding. The paper elaborates on each of the three elements, and then discusses their integrated nature. This is followed by a discussion of the implications of Appreciative System theory for three key players in the decision making process, the organizational leadership, the professionals and the organization at large involved in the practice of Futures Studies (and scenario planning) projects.     

中美黄金期货市场价格关系实证研究

通过对纽约商品交易所和上海期货交易所黄金期货指数收盘价的相关性分析、协整检验、格兰杰因果检验,考察了中美黄金期货价格的关系,分析了中美黄金期货的引导地位,结果表明美国纽约商品交易所黄金期货价格引导中国上海期货交易所黄金期货的价格,继续完善国内黄金市场体系建设,提高中国黄金期货市场的国际影响力和竞争力。     

融合情景分析的产业技术路线图集成规划过程研究

针对目前产业层次的技术路线图在产业环境等预测方面存在的问题,分析了基于情景分析的产业技术路线图的内涵和特点,在此基础上,依据产业技术路线图集成规划过程,提出了融合情景分析的产业技术路线图集成规划过程分析框架,对情景分析在产业技术路线图集成规划过程中计划阶段、开发阶段、实施与更新阶段的主要任务和支持方法进行了重点讨论。     

The system of Ferney: A fable

This paper is an allegorical essay which attempts to provide a critical perspective on systems analysis. It employs both the language and rationale of systems analysis within the structure of the fable. More specifically, it uses the schematic representation of The World Model (found in the Meadows, et al., The Limits to Growth) as the political and social divisions of the Ferney System. The integrating tool for technological assessment within this metaphorical system is the Delphi Method of Futures Research. Expert opinion-consensus serves as the chief mode of governance. The actual history of Ferney, within the fable, is a loop feedback process.     

Stationary and Non-stationary Simultaneous Switching Autoregressive Models with an Application to Financial Time Series

A common observation among economists on many economic time-series, including major financial time-series, is the asymmetrical movement between the downward phase and the upward phase of their sample paths. Since this feature of time irreversibility cannot be described by the Gaussian ARMA, ARIMA or ARCH time-series models, we propose stationary and non-stationary simultaneous switching autoregressive (SSAR) models, which are nonlinear switching time-series models. We discuss some properties of these time-series models and the estimation method for their unknown parameters. The asymmetrical conditional heteroscedasticity can be easily incorporated into the SSAR models. We also report a simple empirical result on Nikkei 225 Spot and Futures indices by using a non-stationary SSAR model.
JEL Classification Numbers: C22, C32.     

单只股票期货及其定价模型研究

本文首先介绍了单只股票期货的含义，产生及其优点，然后根据单只股票期货的特点，给出了单只股票期货合约的定价模型，最后分析了单只股票期货对于中国证券市场的意义。     

Volatility–volume co-movements: evidence from China metal markets

This article investigates the interactional relationship between price volatility and futures trading activity for three heavily traded metal products on the Shanghai Metal Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Using models based on vector autoregression and generalized method of moments, we show, in particular, that futures trading activity has a strong impact on both spot and futures price volatility in copper and aluminium markets. Futures trading activity leads spot market volatility in copper and aluminium markets which suggests that futures markets have a destabilizing effect. In order to disentangle the effect of different traders’ types on asset price movements, we decompose futures trading into speculators’ and hedgers’ trading and investigate their contributions to volatility. As a robustness check, we investigate the impact of endogenous structural breaks on the interactional relationship between price volatility and futures trading.     

Does the Cost Paradox Preclude Technological Progress under Imperfect Competition?

We consider a two‐stage model of R&D/Cournot competition with isoelastic demand satisfying the cost paradox (i.e., that equilibrium profits increase with unit cost). The R&D process has a binary structure, with spillover effects. We provide a negative answer to the question in the title: Under noncooperative R&D, firms will conduct R&D for a broad parameter range, despite the presence of the cost paradox, as a result of being caught in a prisoner's dilemma. A second‐best social planner is shown to have a higher propensity for R&D than the noncooperative scenario. However, if firms engaged in any of the known R&D cooperation scenarios, the answer to the question in the title would become affirmative. It follows that R&D cooperation leads to lower producer and consumer surpluses. This constitutes a major departure from the conclusions of the standard R&D model. Therefore, R&D cooperation in such environments should not receive favorable antitrust treatment.     

An analysis of production efficiency differentials in the Philippines

In the late seventies and early eighties, policy makers in many developing encouraged extensive research to develop appropriate rice technology for unfavourable rainfed environments. The question addressed in this paper is whether the farmers producing under the non-irrigated rainfed environments are achieving the potential of the technology fully at the farm level. The empirical analysis which concerns the farm-level production behaviour of rainfed rice farmers in the Philippines indicates a wide variation in production efficiencies. Extension advice and credit availability appear to be the two major factors influencing the gap between farmers' actual and potential production levels.     

The Tin Crisis (1985-86) and Futures Trading

A succession of six international tin agreements operated from 1956 to 1985. Futures trading in tin continued in London until the buffer stock scheme, without cash or the support of its sponsoring governments, collapsed in October 1985. The implications of the tin experience for futures trading and for so-called commodity stabilization schemes are examined     

Shocks, Policy Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth in Bolivia: A Simulation Analysis

This paper analyzes how major external shocks and policy reforms affect Bolivia’s ability to achieve pro‐poor growth. Employing a recursive‐dynamic CGE model, it considers three different scenarios: an optimistic baseline scenario; a more realistic scenario that accounts for two important negative external shocks (declining capital inflows and El Niño); and a scenario that captures the combined effect of the shocks and two major reform projects (development of the gas sector and deregulation of the urban labor market). It turns out that the shocks are likely to impair Bolivia’s medium‐term development prospects, leading to marked increases in both urban and rural poverty. If the reform projects were implemented, the poverty increase caused by the shocks would be more than offset for urban households, but reinforced for rural households.     

Combined forecast process: Combining scenario analysis with the technological substitution model

Forecasts can be improved by combining separate forecasts obtained by different methods. The complementary nature of the scenario analysis and technological substitution models means that combining the two can obtain improved forecasts. The former has the strength of dealing with the uncertain future, while the later offers data-based forecasts of quantifiable parameters. This study thus proposes a process for combining the scenario analysis with the technological substitution model for discussing new generation technological developments. The proposed process not only has the strengths of scenario analysis, but also contains features that scenario analysis lacks, including predicting annual developments for future years, considering old technology development, and forecasting substitution of old technologies. This study uses the forecast of the market share of Fiber to the x in Taiwan over the next ten years as an example illustrating the proposed combined forecast process.     

Price Discovery Processes

This paper analyzes two price discovery processes: OLS learning from public information and a Bayesian learning made feasible by futures markets. The former tends to produce cobweb behaviour. In the latter, there is no cobweb, there is a faster convergence to Muth Rational Expectations, and the forecast errors are positively serially correlated The evidence drawn from the Sydney Futures Exchange is consistent with the Bayesian learning process.     

Scenario planning in public policy: Understanding use,impacts and the role of institutional context factors

Scenario planning has formed a growing area of interest on the interface of academia and public and private sector policy-making. While methodological approaches are well covered in the academic literature, less attention has been paid to studying the use, impacts and effectiveness of scenario planning in public policy-making. This article combines preliminary findings from a review of evaluative scenario literature with workshop discussions among scenario practitioners, using environmental relevant policies as a case study. Subject to the nascent evaluative scenario literature, our preliminary findings highlight that scenario planning still is often executed in a rather ad-hoc and isolated manner and is mostly geared towards indirect decision support such as agenda-setting and issue-framing. The slim evidence base aggravates the assessment, but the potential of scenario planning to prepare public policy-making for the uncertainties and surprises of future developments and better manage complex decisions involving conflicting societal interests is clearly not fully utilized. Political and institutional context factors need to be treated with greater care in the future. Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty does not only require rigorous analysis, but also political will and more stable institutional settings and organisational capacities to build up trust and experience with adaptive, flexible process formats. We synthesize our analysis with a discussion of further research needs.     

The future of hydrogen fueling systems for transportation: An application of perspective-based scenario analysis using the analytic hierarchy process

This paper integrates the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with scenario analysis techniques to explore the commercialization of future hydrogen fuel processor technologies. AHP is a multi-attribute decision analysis tool useful for evaluating decisions with multiple criteria and alternatives. In this paper, AHP is extended using a technique called perspective-based scenario analysis (PBSA). In PBSA, scenario analysis is conducted based on potential future decision-maker perspectives that are integrated into the AHP framework. This paper discusses this method and applies it to the evaluation of hydrogen fuel processor technologies 15–20 years hence. The results provide an added layer of insight into the opportunities and barriers for the commercialization of these technologies as well as the methodological opportunities for using AHP and PBSA as a futures tool.     

Frontiers of futures research: What's next?

This paper describes some important frontiers of futures research with the aim of identifying new opportunities for improving the value and utility of the field. These frontiers include the exploration and/or the reexamination of

(a) Potential for integrating new technology with futures research methods,

(b) Ways to reduce the domain of the unknowable,

(c) Ways to account for uncertainty in decision making,

(d) Strategies for planning and management of nonlinear systems operating in the chaotic regime,

(e) Ways to improve understanding of psychological factors that lead to irrational decisions

(f) Appropriate levels of aggregation in investigation of forecasting problems.

(g) The potential offered by new sources of social data.

Uncertainty, human action and scenarios

The “scenario method,” “scenario building,” or “multiple futures analysis” emerged during the last decades as a premier instrument for strategic planning and decision making in conditions of uncertainty. This article demonstrates that there is an intrinsic link between the scenario method and Austrian theory not only at the level of basic epistemological principles but also at the methodological and applied levels. The article also argues that the scenario method could easily be embraced as a part of the Austrian family of ideas and more precisely as one of the key policy applications or decision support tools informed by that school of thought. Blending explicitly and systematically the scenario method with the Austrian ideas and forcefully making the case for the scenario approach as a policy and business administration tool, is thus one of the most effective ways of reasserting the importance of Austrian insights in areas such as business studies, public policy, and organizational theory, areas that currently have a limited exposure to Austrian ideas.     

纽约黄金期货价格波动对我国期货市场收益率的影响研究

随着我国期货市场的迅速发展,商品期货逐步显示出金融属性。本文运用自回归分布滞后模型结合GARCH族模型对纽约黄金期货价格波动与我国上海期货交易所沪铜、沪铝、沪锌、天然橡胶、燃料油期货价格波动之间的动态关系展开研究,以考察宏观经济运行对我国期货市场的影响。     

Order imbalances explain 90% of returns of Nikkei 225 futures

This article introduces a new kind of order imbalance – limit order imbalance – in addition to the conventional order imbalance to explain the intraday stock returns. The conventional order imbalance together with our new order imbalance are shown to explain more than 90% of intraday returns of the Nikkei 225 Futures in the Osaka Stock Exchange in Japan. It is also found that a scaling by spreads substantially increases the explanatory power in thinner markets.     

The Efficiency of the Market for Bank Accepted Bills*

The speculative efficiency of the Sydney Futures Exchange's market in bank accepted bills is examined by considering if the futures price is an unbiased predictor of the subsequent spot price and if other publicly available information can improve on this predictor. Data spanning the period 1980(1) to 1986(5) are employed The results are adverse to the efficiency hypothesis in that the futures price in some cases is not an unbiased predictor and neither is it an optimal predictor.