Price Transmission Along the Canadian Beef Supply Chain and the Impact of BSE

This study investigates the dynamics of price transmission between the Canadian beef markets along the supply chain and the impact of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) on prices. Retail price models are estimated for the provinces accounting for the major share of national demand, while farm price models are estimated for the beef cattle producing provinces. A model for the processing level is also estimated with national industrial prices of beef and provincial farm prices of beef cattle. The results indicate that retail beef prices in the major consuming provinces adjust either faster or at a greater magnitude to increases in industrial prices than to decreases. Furthermore, industrial prices adjust faster and at a greater magnitude in response to rising farm prices of beef cattle in Ontario and Quebec than when they fall. The impact of BSE on retail prices has been small and negative for Alberta and Ontario, and positive for Quebec and British Columbia. The impact of BSE on industrial prices has also been small and positive. On the contrary, strong and sustained negative influence of BSE on farm prices is evident in the results for the beef cattle producing provinces.Price Transmission, Beef Prices, BSE, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis,

Spatial Integration and Price Transmission in Selected Rural and Urban Markets for Cassava Fresh Roots in Nigeria

An advanced time series econometric technique was used to study the interaction between the prices of cassava fresh roots in typical urban-demand and rural-supply markets in Nigeria. The price data cover 95 weeks from week 37 of 2004 to week 28 of 2006. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test was used to investigate stationarity in the prices while Johansen cointegration test procedure, with its associated vector error correction model (VECM) was used to measure the speed of adjustment coefficients that characterized the long-run dynamics of the system. Unit root tests revealed non-stationarity in both urban and rural prices series: in levels the ADF-test statistics were calculated as -1.68 for the rural price and -2.69 for the urban price while in first differences they were -13.98 and -11.91 respectively. Cointegration test revealed that both prices were cointegrated with the trace- and maximum eigenvalue statistics calculated as 18.79 and 16.38, each being statistically significant (p<0.5). The VECM reveals that any positive deviation from the long-run equilibrium would cause the system to respond with decreases in both the rural and urban prices, albeit the rural price responded faster. The impulse response analysis revealed that the rural price was more responsive to shocks emanating from the rural markets. The effect of the shock was calculated as 63.8% using the forecast error variance decompositions. The effect of rural price shock on the urban price appeared to be very infinitesimal at only 6.0% after about 10 periods. The Granger causality test did not reveal any significant causality link between the rural and urban markets prices, suggesting lack of clear trends in price leadership. The finding reveals the lack of predictability and reliability of markets for highly perishable and susceptible agricultural products, like raw cassava roots. There is need to strengthen cassava value chains with greater emphasis on processing and/or direct sale of roots to commercial processors, so as to reduce the volume of transaction of raw roots in the open market, because of the associated price shocks that have perpetually left the rural Nigerian farmer in abject poverty. Keywords: Cassava fresh roots, spatial integration, rural, urban, markets, price leadership, Nigeria

Ranking and automatic selection of machine learning models Abstract

Generally, the present disclosure is directed to an API for ranking and automatic selection from competing machine learning models that can perform a particular task. In particular, in some implementations, the systems and methods of the present disclosure can include or otherwise leverage one or more machine-learned models to provide to a software application one or more machine learning models from different providers. The trained models are suited to a task or data type specified by the developer. The one or more models are selected from a registry of machine learning models, their task specialties, cost, and performance, such that the application specified cost and performance requirements are met. An application processor interface (API) maintains a registry of various machine learning models, their task specialties, costs and/or performances. A third-party developer can make a call to the API to select one or more machine learning models. The API call includes specification of the task and/or data to be analyzed using the machine learning models. The API can utilize machine learning model that ranks the available machine learning models to perform selection of the machine learning model. The availability of such an API eliminates the need for app developers to develop their own models, and can enable app developers that do not have the resources and/or expertise to develop their own models to utilize pre-trained models available from providers to perform tasks within their apps. The API can be provided as part of an operating system, as a cloud-based API, or as functionality of machine-learning hardware, e.g., processors

Combining Industrial Organization and Econometric Methods in Price Transmission Analysis

The degree of competition and level of price transmission in food markets have important effects on the welfare level of consumers and producers. Thus, substantial attention has been paid to the analysis of price transmission in food markets. Traditionally, price transmission analyses have focused on applying econometric methods to assess whether prices are cointegrated, the order of cointegration and the adjustment speed. In contrast, less attention has been devoted to the theoretical underpinnings, the structure of the market and the interpretation of results. To address this gap, this study explores how to combine industrial organization methods and time-series econometrics in price transmission analyses to inform policy choices. With this aim, this research uses a three-step approach. First, I employ industrial organization methods to analyse the structure of the milk market. Second, I use time-series econometrics to assess the price dynamics. Finally, I triangulate the different sources of information, bringing together the evidence derived from both analyses. The study illustrates the complementarity of these methods to gain a better understanding of the findings, to corroborate theoretical propositions and to advance theoretical concepts. The study uses the milk market in Panama to illustrate this approach.

Pristransmisjon for laks i det franske og britiske markedet

Master's thesis in Industrial economicsThis study analyses price transmission from Norwegian export prices of fresh salmon to retail prices of consumer salmon products in France and UK. For different reasons, changes in salmon export prices do not need to be fully transmitted to retail prices of salmon products based on Atlantic salmon from Norway. This study tries to shed light on these price links between different levels in the value chain. Specifically, this study attempts to quantify the degree of price transmission on a broader set of consumer salmon products than has been analyzed in earlier studies. Moreover, this is the first study that analyzes differences in price transmission between branded products and supermarkets’ private label salmon products. The results from this study show a high degree of price transmission from Norwegian export prices to retail prices of natural fresh products such as fillets, steaks and whole. However, price transmission to retail prices decreases as more processing are involved; for fresh whole salmon price transmission is complete, while in highly value added products such as fresh ready main meal the price transmission can be close to zero. The econometric results further suggest that the transmission is higher from the Norwegian export price to the retail prices of private label salmon products compared to prices of branded salmon products. Again, this is an indicator that there are higher marketing costs for branded products. The increasing range of salmon products marketed to satisfy the different consumer tastes therefore reduces transmission from salmon export price to retail prices. Nonetheless, supermarkets’ private label products appear to have the opposite effect on price transmission

Mountain States Oilseeds: Risk Management for Safflower Production in the Intermountain West

Safflower is an oilseed crop primarily produced in the western Great Plains because of its compatibility with cereal grain equipment. Varieties grown in that region are harvested predominantly for seeds high in safflower oil and oleic acid that are processed and used in cooking oil, human nutrition, and other health and beauty products. Safflower is also grown in Utah, Idaho, and California for birdseed mixes due to the region’s arid climate, which yields a crisp, white seed that is highly favorable in the birdseed market. Mountain States Oilseeds, headquartered in American Falls, Idaho, is one of the United States’ largest processors of safflower seed and is the nation’s No. 1 supplier of safflower seed used in birdseed mixes. While increasing demand for oilseeds will bolster Mountain States Oilseeds’ business, producers often view safflower as a minor annual crop with a high-risk profile and minimal expected returns. Thus, Mountain States Oilseeds must develop a strategy to entice more dedicated oilseed production as resource constraints tighten across the Western U.S. and the worldwide demand for safflower oil, birdseed, and meal continues to expand

Marketing Strategies of the Horticultural Production Chain

This book consists of a series of articles that present novel trends in horticulture marketing and some of the key supply chain management issues for the horticulture industry across a wide range of geographical regions

Three Essays on the Economic Impact of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the United States

The first native-born case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or commonly known as Mad Cow Disease) in North American continent was reported on 20 May 2003 in central Alberta, Canada. The first case of BSE in the United States was announced on 23 December 2003. My dissertation is divided into three essays on the economic impact of the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States in December 2003. The first essay focuses on quantifying the impact of the outbreak of BSE in the United States and Canada on the stock returns of major publicly traded agribusiness firms and restaurant companies in the United States. Event study methodology has emerged to be the best way to analyze the impact of such events on the stock prices. The results of the analysis showed that at an aggregate level firms did not respond significantly to the announcement in May 2003 but the same firms did react to the news of BSE in the United States in December 2003. The individual company-wise and the group-wise results were mixed for both May and December 2003 events. The second essay used the techniques of vector error correction models along with historical decomposition techniques to analyze the impact of mad cow disease on the prices in the beef, pork, and poultry markets. To analyze the interdependence in the meat sector, this essay uses the technique of directed acyclic graphs (DAG). The results of the study indicate interdependencies in the beef, pork, and poultry markets in the United States. That is, a shock in one series has an impact on other series too. There is vertical as well spatial price transmission in the meat markets, though the transmission is not perfect. The different speeds of adjustment point to asymmetric price transmission. Also, the magnitude of the mad cow disease shock was different in different markets indicating asymmetry in terms of both speeds of adjustment and magnitude. The focus of the third essay is to test for any structural change in the demand function for US beef in the major US beef importing countries - South Korea, Japan, Canada, and Mexico. This paper estimates a beef export demand function for the United States and conducts tests for structural changes using the Chow test and the CUSUM test