 Tony Hahn |
Tony Hahn grew up on a farm in Southeastern Indiana and has always had interest in agricultural pricing and futures markets. After obtaining his B.S. degree in agribusiness management from Purdue University in 1999, he came to UIUC as a Master's student in agricultural and consumer economics, with interests in price analysis. This past summer Hahn completed a summer internship with Topco Associates in Skokie, Illinois as a procurement strategist. At Topco, he became aware of the hedging inefficiencies in the beef market. Currently, there is no effective way for a wholesale buyer/grocery buyer to hedge price risk for individual beef cuts. Over the past few years, the beef industry has changed in the manner that beef is sold from carcass or primal cut to selling particular cuts in boxes. This results in price risk for every cut of meat that is purchased. Working with Professor Raymond Leuthold, Hahn will study the feasibility of meat buyers hedging price risks in a proposed new "boxed beef cutout" futures contract. This contract will be based off the USDA's boxed beef cutout value calculated and published daily. Hahn will explore different optimal hedging strategies and test cross-hedging strategies of the beef cuts in the proposed contract and in the live cattle contract. This research will be useful to the food service, wholesale purchaser, and grocery store beef industry. |
