Scott Irwin, Laurence J. Norton Chair in Agricultural Marketing in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the author of “Back to the Futures,” a book that’s part personal memoir and part statement of which is The Futures Market.
Photo from the College of ACES
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new book by a soft commodities markets expert at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explores the vast markets that underlie the global financial system.
Scott Irwin, Laurence J. Norton Chair in Agricultural Marketing in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is co-author of Back to the Futures, a book that is part personal memoir and part personal Memoirs includes explainers of the futures market – the much-maligned invisible hand that controls the prices of commodities like corn, soybeans, cattle and crude oil that are at the heart of the US economy.
“As an academic, I spent decades thinking about commodity markets and living them as a farmer’s son. So I wanted to take on a big challenge and try to explain how the futures markets work in a way that’s easy for the general public to understand but also adds a personal touch,” he said. “Basically, I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to understand and explain how these markets work, so this is my attempt to demystify them for the general public.”
“Back to the Future” published by Ceres Books
Irwin’s journey began as a young boy in a small farming community near Bagley, Iowa, when he nearly died after being hit by a truck navigating the city’s dual carriageway. The irony, Irwin says, is that the near-fatal accident happened at the local grain elevator—right where his love of agricultural markets first took root.
“You could trace a line from this grain elevator to the floors of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and where I am today,” Irwin said. “These two places were magical to me and the connection between the two runs deep.”
Irwin said he took acclaimed author Michael Lewis (“Liar’s Poker,” “Moneyball,” “The Big Short”) as an example and tried to bring the somewhat inscrutable workings of the market through first-person narratives.
“I use these personal experiences as a way to introduce the more technical aspects of what I write about – similes about personal risks, and then expand the scope and explain them in a professional context,” he said. “So a personal narrative framework that flows into these somewhat skewed market explainers and then back again.”
Thematically, the book is about the uncertainty of it all: the element that plays risk in life — in real life and in the markets, Irwin said. To that end, there are more encounters with death throughout the book: stunts involving motorcycles, snowmobiles, race cars, farm equipment, and crashes with rogue cows while growing up on the family farm.
“The idea behind the book was that I thought I had enough crazy personal stories about risk and risk management that they could serve as a framework for a larger story,” he said. “For the average person, markets are somewhat abstract, so explaining and presenting these complex human-level interactions to a non-academic audience is an innate challenge. Basically, this book tries to unravel the mystery from the markets.” and show that real people are behind it.
The book is also a full-bodied defense of the much-maligned role of speculation in the futures markets.
“Speculators certainly have a bad reputation, but I would argue that by taking risks, they reduce the risk for the small ones — the farmers and the middle operators, like those who run the warehouse elevators or process grain,” Irwin said. “Basically the people I grew up with.”
Though it’s not a textbook and the style and stories are somewhat irreverent, the subject itself is serious, Irwin said.
“Narratively, it’s difficult to deal with that tension when you’re turning your personal stories into a fun and entertaining book about the futures markets,” he said. “After reading this book, especially the more technical parts, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s being talked about on CNBC. If you read the Wall Street Journal, you’ll have a better sense of what’s going on, especially in soft commodity markets.”
The book will be published by Ceres Books on April 19th.
Irwin’s co-writer was Doug Peterson.
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