APFRS: A Continued Tradition

The history of the research seminars/conferences initiated and sponsored by the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) dates back to the 1940s. Those early conferences and their multicopied proceedings helped a fast growing audience of parties interested in futures markets, but they were only the bare beginnings of a rich CBOT Educational Research Foundation tradition that characteristically encouraged and supported formal research into futures, options, and other derivative markets, as well as the publication of that research.

In 1959, a carefully organized research seminar was held by the CBOT at the exchange for academics, government officials, traders, and futures industry personnel, and from that seminar resulted the first book of printed proceedings.

The CBOT mailed out hundreds of copies of each seminar’s “Call for Papers” a full year in advance of a seminar. This approach assured a full complement of research submissions and of individual researchers—academics, trade professionals, or government regulators—who wanted to attend. These research conferences were held yearly in Europe and the Pacific Rim.

In October 1981, the CBOT—again with the goal of encouraging and supporting professional research into derivative markets, especially futures and options—began its series of Fall Research Seminars. The fall series used the same successful format and was held every fall from 1981 until 1997. In some years the seminars were held not in Chicago but in cities or at universities where there was a strong interest in the markets. The Fall Seminar was held in Washington, D.C. in 1988, at Duke University in 1989, at Vanderbilt University in 1990, and at Rice University in 1995.

It can be said without any exaggeration that the Chicago Board of Trade’s Annual May Research Seminars—held continuously from 1977 through 2000 and inspired by the Board’s market research interest going back to the 1940s—stood at the very forefront of institutions actively encouraging and supporting interest in academic research into futures, options, and other derivatives.

This history of the longest running Futures Research Symposium has been continued by Kent State as a part of the Center for Financial Engineering. The symposia presents the latest research on derivatives markets and products to an invitation only audience composed of elite researchers, regulators, exchange officials, and market practitioners. The format of presentation and discussion encourages an open exchange of ideas.