Price Convergence in the EU Poultry and Eggs Markets

This paper uses the notions of convergence in ratio and of convergence in difference to investigate price convergence for poultry and eggs in geographically separated EU markets. According to the empirical results, there is global and strong convergence of prices in the poultry markets but not in the egg markets. The latter appear to be fragmented into a number of price convergence clubs.Convergence

Multiple Markets Within the EU? Empirical Evidence From Pork and Poultry Prices in 14 EU Member Countrties

The present study investigates the price dynamics of two agricultural commodities, pork and poultry, in order to determine whether there is a single or multiple markets within the EU. The investigation relies on the notion of a price club (meaning a group of countries in which prices obey the LOP) and on a clustering algorithm which allows for endogenous selection of such clubs. Overall, the empirical results indicate that the EU markets for pork and poultry are far from the ideal ones in which prices are uniform.

Are Food Price Differences in EU Member States a Result of the Penn Effect?

Panel data from 14 EU member states and non parametric techniques are used in this paper to investigate the relationship between food prices and real per capita incomes. The empirical results suggest that the Penn Effect largely holds for Total Food prices but not for the prices of certain among the seven disaggregate food commodities considered. In particular, for Cereals, for Fats and Oils, and for Other food products poorer countries are likely to face prices no lower than those prevailing in richer onesFood Prices, Living Standards, EU, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q11, C14,

International Consumption Patterns for Proteins and Fats: Intra-distributional Mobility and the Role of Income Elasticity

Stochastic kernels are used in this paper to investigate intra-distribution dynamics in the world per capita intakes of proteins and fats. The analysis of actual transitions over the last 40 years indicates that lagging countries improved their position relative to the leading. Long-run (steady-state) distributions have been obtained using estimated intake change models. These distributions have been compared to “virtual†ones revealing that the income elasticity of demand or equivalently the rate of growth in per capita income does have a strong influence on the dispersion of intakes at the steady-state.Nutrient Intakes, Stochastic Kernels, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q1, D12, C14,

DISTANCE VS. RAY FUNCTIONS: AN APPLICATION TO THE INSHORE FISHERY OF GREECE

The objective of this paper is to compare the empirical results from two alternative representations of a stochastic multi-output technology using trip-level data of the inshore fleet in Greece. The comparisons involve technical efficiency scores, structure of the underlying technology, and technical efficiency determinants. The stochastic multi-output distance function and the stochastic ray production function indicate the same technology structure, which is non-separable in inputs and outputs, non-homothetic in inputs, and exhibits increasing returns to scale. The relative rankings of efficiency scores are very similar. The distributions of efficiency scores, however, are different, and the ray production frontier yields systematically lower technical inefficiency levels than the multi-output distance function.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Towards a common EU policy on income distribution: the case of social benefit expenditures

The observed "soft" coordination at European and national level has hindered progress in terms of raising social welfare and reducing the risk of poverty in EU. This is a source of concern given that the fruits of economic efficiency should be shared by the individuals and Member States of EU in an equitable manner. Raising social welfare would assist the process of building up the necessary social consensus in favour of structural reforms in product and capital markets, which in turn would further enhance economic efficiency. This paper focuses on a key indicator of social policy in national agendas which is the social expenditure as a percent of the GDP so as to assess whether there is convergence in social policy across European countries. The empirical analysis utilises information from 18 European countries over the period 1990-2004 and appropriate methodological tools of absolute ó-convergence and analysis of distribution dynamics

Distribution Dynamics of Dietary Energy Supply in the World

This paper investigates the law of motion for the cross-section distribution of dietary energy supply (DES) in the world. This has been pursued using the distribution approach and a panel of 152 countries for the period 1961-2001. According to the empirical results, persistence in caloric intakes dominates in the short-run. With time, however, upwards mobility gains momentum and the world is moving towards a long-run distribution, which is strongly skewed to the left. The estimated expected first passage times from extreme under-supply to higher intake levels are consistent with speculations that most of the developing countries will attain the 3000 kcal per person per day level by the year 2030.caloric intakes, mobility, World, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, C10, D12,

Non-Linear Catching-up and Long-Run Convergence in the Agricultural Productivity of US States

This note investigates convergence of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) for 48 contiguous states in the US. This is carried out using a recently developed methodology which allows for a clear delineation between catching-up and long-run convergence as well as for the presence of non-linearity in TFP differentials. According to the empirical results, the state TFP dynamics are predominantly long-run converging.Productivity

Towards a Common EU Policy on Income Distribution: the case of Social Benefit Expenditures

The observed “soft†coordination at European and national level has hindered progress in terms of raising social welfare and reducing the risk of poverty in EU. This is a source of concern given that the fruits of economic efficiency should be shared by the individuals and Member States of EU in an equitable manner. Raising social welfare would assist the process of building up the necessary social consensus in favour of structural reforms in product and capital markets, which in turn would further enhance economic efficiency. This paper focuses on a key indicator of social policy in national agendas which is the social expenditure as a percent of the GDP so as to assess whether there is convergence in social policy across European countries. The empirical analysis utilises information from 18 European countries over the period 1990-2004 and appropriate methodological tools of absolute ó-convergence and analysis of distribution dynamics.

MEAT DEMAND IN THE UK: A DIFFERENTIAL APPROACH

A differential approach is employed to analyze demand for meat in the United Kingdom during 1989-99. Differential demand systems with fixed price effects (Rotterdam and CBS) better explain consumersÂ’ retail purchase allocation decisions for beef, lamb, pork, bacon and poultry compared with models containing variable price effects (NBR and differential AIDS). The real expenditures and the Hicksian demand elasticities are generally found to be quite different from earlier studies using AIDS models. A quality change index of meat consumption is constructed from the estimated CBS model estimation results and decomposed into real expenditure, substitution, trend, seasonal and residual effects.meat demand, differential approach, model selection, UK, Demand and Price Analysis,