NORTH AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL MARKET INTEGRATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE FOOD AND FIBER SYSTEM

Economic change and market dynamics have fundamentally altered the structure and performance of agricultural markets in the United States, Canada, and Mexico within the last 25 years. Many factors have helped shape the current North American food and fiber system, including technological change, domestic farm policies, international trade agreements, and the economic forces of supply and demand. Ratification of NAFTA, for example, helped integrate the North American market, sparking a surge in trade and investment among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In recent years, efforts to further integrate the continental market seem to have slowed. Broadening the scope of NAFTA to include institutional reforms that lead to a more unified system of commercial law, the establishment of common antitrust and regulatory procedures, harmonization of product standards, and increased coordination of domestic farm, market, and macroeconomic policies would deepen market integration and enhance market efficiency and growth within North America.agriculture, market integration, market segmentation, law of one price, price transmission, elasticities, exchange-rate pass-through, market efficiency, bilateral trade intensity, regional trade agreements, NAFTA, CUSTA, trade policy, WTO, GATT, Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade, Marketing,

Long-Run Relationship of U.S. and Argentine Maize Prices

This paper examines the relationship between the maize export prices of the United States and Argentina. The results suggest an asymmetric nature of price adjustment. This could be due to the fact that the maize market is characterized by significant concentration. The larger market share of exports by the United States reflects the influences on export price dynamics. The structure of maize trade is such that U.S. markets are largely insulated from influences flowing from Argentina, while Argentine maize prices are not insulated from U.S. influences.cointegration, maize, price dynamics, threshold adjustment, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade,

An HSUS Report: Industrial Farm Animal Production and Livestock Associated MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus)

Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of bacterial infection and is increasingly found to be resistant to antibiotic therapy. A newly described type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus carried by farm animals, Livestock Associated MRSA (LA-MRSA), is now causing infections in humans with and without direct livestock contact. A reduction in the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in feed would likely reduce the capacity of industrial animal agriculture to continue to create, disseminate, and perpetuate a large reservoir of LA-MRSA on a global scale, but more fundamental changes in the way animals are raised for food may be necessary forestall a post-antibiotic age

SPATIAL MARKET INTEGRATION IN REGIONAL CATTLE MARKETS

Geographic markets are extremely important to agriculture because agricultural products are bulky and/or perishable and production and consumption areas are separated. This study investigates how mandatory price reporting has influenced the degree of spatial market integration between U.S. regional fed cattle markets. Results indicate the market prices across the regional cattle markets are cointegrated. In addition, the amount of time it took for one market to react to the other markets change in price varied across the three time periods used in this study. This suggests mandatory price reporting has not substantially increased market integration.Industrial Organization,

THREE APPLICATIONS OF TIME-SERIES ECONOMETRICS ASSESSING COMMODITY PRICE RISK, FOOD PRICE INFLATION, AND MARKET INTEGRATION

The three chapters contained in this dissertation examine crop and food markets in the United States. The first chapter explores strategies for forecasting realized price volatility in commodity futures markets. This chapter also investigates whether price risk is solely a function of time length.The second chapter assesses the pass-through cost of commodity price changes to retail food prices during the re-opening phase of the COVID-19 pandemic between 2021 and 2023. The second chapter also explores the impact of higher food transportation and distribution costs on retail food prices.The third chapter investigates the interdependence between organic and conventional food markets, with a focus on Hass avocados in the United States. Chapter three begins by examining the relationship between organic market share and the organic price premium, and subsequently analyzes the stability of the organic price premium through an investigation of retail market integration

U.S. and Canadian Livestock Prices: Market Integration and Trade Dependence

Cointegration of Canadian and U.S. livestock prices points to the existence of market integration in the period 1996:1 to 2004:12 even though the trade flows of livestock and beef products were non-existent for many months in 2003 and 2004 (suggesting market segmentation) due to livestock/beef import bans by both countries due to BSE. It was also determined that Canada's trade dependence in livestock and beef is cointegrated with Canadian and U.S. livestock prices. However, as the trade dependence variable is shocked, the effects on Canadian and U.S. prices are opposite although one would expect that in an integrated market the price responses to an exogenous shock would be similar or statistically identical. This result reinforces the case against the use of cointegration in determining presence (or absence) of market integration. Empirical results in this article raise some very difficult questions. Gains from trade are well documented. Yet, once a country is very trade dependent, the prices in it are much more vulnerable to exogenous shocks that reduce the trade flows. Canadian livestock prices plummeted and stayed low following the BSE incident and U.S. (and Japanese) import bans on Canadian livestock and beef. Given the long cycles and high sunk cost in the livestock and beef industry, immediate adjustment (reduction in production) for Canadian producers was difficult and always unlikely. Moreover, the possibility of import bans being lifted in the near future may have further shaped their expectations and prolonged the decisions on herd reduction. In the meanwhile, U.S. prices increased following Canada's trade dependence shock due to BSE and remained above the original long-run equilibrium price.Demand and Price Analysis, Livestock Production/Industries,

Spatial Dynamics of the Livestock Sector in the United States: Do Environmental Regulations Matter?

This study examines the factors affecting state annual share of national inventory for each of the hog, dairy, and fed-cattle sectors using data from the 48 contiguous states for 1976 to 2000. The paper develops a state specific, time-series environmental stringency measure and introduces instrumental variables to control for the possible endogeneity bias between livestock production decisions and regulatory stringency. The results indicate that differences in the severity of environmental regulations facing livestock producers have had a significant influence on production decisions in the dairy, and particularly the hog sector.environmental regulation stringency, fixed-effects model, instrumental variable, livestock production, location choice, panel data analysis, pollution havens, Environmental Economics and Policy,

WHEAT ACREAGE SUPPLY RESPONSE IN THE UNITED STATES

The dynamic structure of wheat acreage supply response is considerably more complex than previous studies have recognized. The distributed lag response is saw-toothed in its pattern, which is believed to eminate from the influence of summer fallow in crop rotations in the Great Plains. The acreage response elasticity estimate for the Great Plains at mean price was 1.3, and for the aggregate U.S. it was 1.5. For the Unites States, the proportion of long-run response experienced over the first five years from an increment to price was .24, .44, .70, .95, and. 99.Crop Production/Industries,

ASSESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARKET FACTORS AND REGIONAL PRICE DYNAMICS IN U.S. CATTLE MARKETS

Regional live cattle prices are decomposed into two components: (a) a trend common to all regional cattle price series and (b) regional deviations or price dynamics around that trend. Tests are developed to determine if market factors are related to the regional price deviations around a common trend. Slaughter volume, distance between a market and the next closest, and forward contract deliveries are significantly related to price deviations from the estimated common trend.Livestock Production/Industries,

Regional Log Market Integration in New Zealand

In this paper the integration of log prices across four regions in New Zealand was assessed. A time series of prices for six Radiata Pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) log grades in each of the regions were tested for co-integration using Johansen’s method and Engle-Granger pair wise tests. Prices for export grades display significant integration across regions and generally follow the law of one price. However, markets for domestic grades tend to be regionally segregated. These results are most likely due to the high costs of transporting logs between regions. Future modelling will need to incorporate such transportation costs in order to adequately characterise log markets in the country.log market; co-integration; law of one price