Keynes’s activity on the cotton market and the theory of the ‘normal backwardation’: 1921-1929

The aim of this paper is to assess to what extent Keynes, or any other speculator, could ever have used the theory of futures contracts he formulated in the 1920s as guiding principle for their investment strategy and what light the theory can shed on speculative behaviour. To this end, we focus our attention on Keynes' speculations on the cotton market. Our main conclusion is that Keynes did not base his speculation in cotton exclusively on the assumption that futures prices were downward biased in comparison with spot prices, as his theory would predict.

Il saggio si propone di valutare in che misura Keynes o uno speculatore qualsiasi avrebbe potuto utilizzare la teoria dei mercati a termine elaborata da Keynes negli anni Venti come guida per il proprio comportamento. A questo scopo si studiano gli investimenti speculativi di Keynes sui mercati a termine del cotone.