Holbrook Working a professor of economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 and statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

’s Food
Research Institute, is known for his contributions on hedging

Hedge (finance)

A hedge is an investment position intended to offset potential losses that may be incurred by a companion investment.A hedge can be constructed from many types of financial instruments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, insurance, forward contracts, swaps, options, many types of...

, the theory of futures

Futures contract

In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...

 prices – which anticipated the efficient market hypothesis

Efficient market hypothesis

In finance, the efficient-market hypothesis asserts that financial markets are "informationally efficient". That is, one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns on a risk-adjusted basis, given the information available at the time the investment is made.There are...

, an early theory of market maker

Market maker

A market maker is a company, or an individual, that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a financial instrument or commodity held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the bid-offer spread, or turn. From a market microstructure theory standpoint, market makers are net sellers of an option to be...

 behavior, and the theory of storage

Theory of storage

The Theory of Storage describes features observed in commodity markets:When inventory levels of the commodity in question are high:* Futures prices tend to be in contango* The volatility of spot and futures prices tend to be low, and equal...

 (including the Working curve which plots the difference between short term and long term grain futures prices against current inventory)..

He disagreed with Keynes’s backwardation

Backwardation

Normal backwardation, also sometimes called backwardation, is the market condition wherein the price of a forward or futures contract is trading below the expected spot price at contract maturity. The resulting futures or forward curve would typically be downward sloping , since contracts for...

 theory of futures prices, which argued that short hedgers (farmers) drive down futures prices because of their demand for price insurance. Working argued that there could be hedgers on both sides of the market and that hedging was essentially not a risk reduction technique, but "speculation in the basis" which allows informed traders and commodity dealers to profit from their knowledge of future changes in the difference between futures and spot prices.

A native of Fort Collins, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, Working received his Ph.D. in Agricultural
Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

 in 1921. Before joining the Food Research Institute in 1925, he taught at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 and the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

. His younger brother Elmer Working made a major contribution on the identification problem for demand curves

Parameter identification problem

The parameter identification problem is a problem which can occur in the estimation of multiple-equation econometric models where the equations have variables in common....

 in econometrics, with which Holbrook Working was also involved.

He was a founding member of the Econometric Society

Econometric Society

The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....

 and was elected a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association, the American Statistical Association

American Statistical Association

The American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...

, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

. In 1981 he was awarded the Wilks Memorial Award

Wilks Memorial Award

The Wilks Memorial Award is awarded by the American Statistical Association to recognize outstanding contributions to statistics. It was established in 1964 and is awarded yearly. It is named in memory of the statistician Samuel S. Wilks. The award consists of a medal, a citation and a cash...

by the American Statistical Association.

Notable papers

• "The Statistical Determination of Demand Curves", 1925, Quarterly Journal of Economics
• "Review of Mitchell", 1928, Journal of the American Statistical Association
• "A Random Difference Series for Use in the Analysis of Time Series", 1934, Journal of the American Statistical Association
• "Differential Price Behavior as a Subject for Commodity Price Analysis", 1935, Econometrica
• "Futures Trading and Hedging", 1953, American Economic Review
• "Hedging Reconsidered", 1953, Journal of Farm Economics
• "New Concepts Concerning Futures Markets and Prices", 1962, American Economic Review
• "Tests of a Theory Concerning Floor Trading on Commodity Exchanges", 1967, Food Research Institute Studies