Measuring market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry

This paper measures the degree of market power of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry over the period 1983–2007 at the three-digit SIC level. The present study also estimates the “deadweight” loss and the reduction of consumers’ income due to the possible existence of market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. Based on Bresnahan’s (1989) conjectural variation model, three different approaches are used to investigate competitive conditions of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. The first approach assesses the extent of market power of the whole industry over the period 1983–2007; the second approach tests the degree of market power in each one of the nine sectors of the industry over the whole period, i.e. 1983–2007; and the third one estimates the extent of market power for the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry for specific sub-periods of the period 1983–2007. The methodology of Dickson and Yu (1989) is adopted to measure the welfare losses. The empirical results indicate the presence of some degree of market power in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry as well as in each one sector of the industry during the period 1983– 2007 and, as a result, the existence of welfare losses. In addition, the empirical findings support the presence of some degree of market power for each sub-period of the period 1983– 2007 in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry and the existence of welfare losses.Conjectural variation, Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry, Market power, Welfare losses, Agribusiness, D43, D60, L66, Q10,

Commodity Food Prices: Review and Empirics

The present paper provides a literature review of studies examining the potential causes and consequences of recent surges in food and agricultural commodity prices. Furthermore, this paper uses the structural trend methodology proposed by Koopman et al. (2009) to analyze movements in the IMF monthly commodity food price index for the period 1992(11)–2012(10) and to provide forecasts for the period 2012(11)–2014(12). The empirical results indicate that commodity food prices present seasonality and cyclicality with the longest periodicity of two years.Theempirical findings identify certain structural breaks in commodity food price series aswell as outliers. These structural breaks seem to capture the trend component of the price serieswell,while the outliers take account of temporal effects, that is, short-lived spikes. Finally, the presented forecasts show high and volatile commodity food prices

Investigating market structure of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry: A Hall-Roeger approach

This paper investigates the market structure of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry over the period 1984–2007 at the three-digit SIC level. Based on the Hall-Roeger approach (1995), three models are used to investigate the competitive conditions in the industry. The first model (Hall-Roeger model) assesses the markup in the whole industry over the period 1984–2007. The second model (HallRoeger cross-sectional model) tests the extent of the markup for each of the nine sectors of the industry over the period 1984–2007, whereas the third (Hall-Roeger time-series model) estimates the markup for the whole industry for certain sub-periods of the period 1984–2007. The present paper also investigates factors affecting the markup in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry during the period 1984–2007. The empirical results indicate that the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry, as well as each sector of the industry, operates in non-competitive conditions during the period 1984–2007. Furthermore, the industry operates in non-competitive conditions for certain sub-periods of the period 1984–2007. The findings also support the view that the sector size, capital intensity and the number of establishments influence the markup in Greek food and beverages manufacturing during the period 1984–200

Do the home field, global advantage, and liability of unfamiliarness hypotheses hold? empirical evidence from Malaysia

The study explores the home field, global advantage, and liability of unfamiliarness hypotheses in the Malaysian banking sector. The results indicate that Malaysian banks have exhibited productivity progress mainly attributed to technological progress. The authors find negative relationship between foreign and government ownership and bank productivity. Likewise, the publicly listed banks have been relatively less productive compared to private banks, thus rejecting the market discipline hypothesis. The empirical findings suggest that foreign banks from the North American countries to be the least productive banking group lending support to the home field advantage and the limited form of the global advantage hypotheses

Housing prices and macroeconomic factors in Greece: prospects within the EMU

This article analyses the dynamic effects of specific macroeconomic variables, for example housing loan rates, inflation, employment and money supply, on the price of new houses sold in Greece. An error correction vector autoregressive (ECVAR) model is used in modelling the impact of the above macroeconomic variables on housing price. The results obtained through impulse response functions suggest that housing prices respond to all macroeconomic variables under consideration. Variance decompositions show that the housing loan rate is the variable with the highest explanatory power over the variation of housing price, followed by inflation and employment, while money supply does not seem to show any substantial impact.

Housing prices and macroeconomic factors in Greece: prospects within the EMU

This study analyses the dynamic effects of specific macroeconomic variables, i.e. housing loan rates, inflation, employment, and money supply, on the price of new houses sold in Greece. An error correction vector autoregressive (ECVAR) model is used in modelling the impact of the above macroeconomic variables on housing price. The results obtained through impulse response functions suggest that housing prices respond to all macroeconomic variables under consideration. Variance decompositions show that the housing loan rate is the variable with the highest explanatory power over the variation of housing price, followed by inflation and employment, while money supply does not seem to show any substantial impact.

Pass-through of exchange rates and tariffs in Greek-US tobacco trade

The paper examines the extent to which exchange rate and unit tariff changes are passed-through in US import prices of unmanufactured Greek oriental tobacco. The results indicate partial pass-through of exchange rates and tariffs. Exchange rate pass-through is about 0.272 and tariff pass-through about 0.185. One possible reason for the partial pass-through is oligopoly in tobacco exporting. Oligopoly would imply that depreciation of the drachma relative to the US dollar benefits tobacco exporters operating in Greece. A second possible reason is a possible correlation between exchange rates premiums paid to tobacco exporters in previous agricultural policies. An important implication of this possible correlation is that Greek tobacco prices may be more sensitive to exchange rate changes under the current agricultural policy. ©1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Measuring market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry

This paper measures the degree of market power of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry over the period 1983–2007 at the three-digit SIC level. The present study also estimates the “deadweight” loss and the reduction of consumers’ income due to the possible existence of market power in the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. Based on Bresnahan’s (1989) conjectural variation model, three different approaches are used to investigate competitive conditions of the Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry. The first approach assesses the extent of market power of the whole industry over the period 1983–2007; the second approach tests the degree of market power in each one of the nine sectors of the industry over the whole period, i.e. 1983–2007; and the third one estimates the extent of market power for the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry for specific sub-periods of the period 1983–2007. The methodology of Dickson and Yu (1989) is adopted to measure the welfare losses. The empirical results indicate the presence of some degree of market power in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry as well as in each one sector of the industry during the period 1983– 2007 and, as a result, the existence of welfare losses. In addition, the empirical findings support the presence of some degree of market power for each sub-period of the period 1983– 2007 in the whole Greek food and beverages manufacturing industry and the existence of welfare losses