The Impact of Derivatives on Cash Markets: What Have We Learned?

This paper summarizes the theoretical and empirical research on how the introduction of derivative securities affects the underlying market. A wide array of theoretical approaches has been applied to the question of how speculative trading, the introduction of futures, or the introduction of options might affect the stability, liquidity and price informativeness of asset markets. In most cases, the resulting models predict that speculative trading and derivative markets stabilize the underlying market under certain restrictive conditions, but in general the predictions can go either way, depending on parameter values. The empirical evidence suggests that the introduction of derivatives does not destabilize the underlying market—either there is no effect or there is a decline in volatility—and that the introduction of derivatives tends to improve the liquidity and informativeness of markets.