Price Discovery and Market Efficiency of Commodities Futures Market in India - A Cointegration and Causality Analysis

The paper studies the Indian commodity futures market in order to determine the price discovery, long run market efficiency and short run dynamics in futures market using by time series analysis tools. To test the market efficiency and long run equilibrium, tools like Engle and Granger cointegration test (1987) and Johansen cointegration test (1988) have been applied. The Granger Causality (1969) test is used test the market efficiency to infer cause and affect relationship between spot and futures market in India. To examine efficiency of commodity futures and spot market the MCX's¹ four spot and futures commodity indices data are used. The paper observes that the role of commodity futures is very significant in price discovery, and improving efficiency of the market.