A comparison was made between the current telephone trading system (TTS) used to trade cash grain and a computerized trading system (CTS). Three steps were necessary to accomplish this task. First, the past and present TTS were explored through a historical case study and a survey of grain traders, respectively. Second, a theoretical framework based on the principle that the price discovery process is a communication process was developed to guide the comparison. Finally, a CTS for grains was conceptualized and a demonstration computer program was written to model such a system.

Using communication and functional performance criteria, the two systems were compared. It appears that a CTS is a more effective price discovery mechanism due to the explicit data bases and software inherent to it. In addition, a CTS is a global and centralized trading system as opposed to a TTS which is dyadic and decentralized.

The main implications of a CTS to the grain industry was hypothesized to be an increase in pricing and technical efficiency in the price discovery process. The result of this increased efficiency is to increase competition and affect market structure. Continued pressure toward an oligopolistic structure could be countered by the symmetric information available over a CTS.