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Working Paper
A strategic approach to hedging and contracting
This paper provides a new rationale for hedging that is based partly on noncompetitive behavior in product markets. The authors identify a set of conditions that imply that a firm may want to hedge. Empirically, these conditions are consistent with what is observed in the marketplace. The conditions are: 1) firms have some market power in their product market; 2) firms have limited liability; and 3) firms can contract to sell their output at a specified price before all factors that can affect their profitability are known. For some parameter specifications, however, the model predicts that ...