Price Discovery in Spot and Futures Markets: A Reconsideration. Unpublished Manuscript

Abstract: We reconsider the issue of price discovery in spot and futures markets. We use a thresh-old error correction model to allow for arbitrage operations to have an impact on the return dynam-ics. We estimate the model using quote midpoints, and we modify the model to account for time-varying transaction costs. We find that the futures market leads in the process of price discovery. The lead of the futures market is more pronounced in the presence of arbitrage signals. Thus, when the deviation between the spot and the futures market is large, the spot market tends to adjust to the futures market