an alternative view of pricing in retail food markets the pricing mechanism of intracity retail food markets has received the attention of agricultural economists who are interested in the competitive nature of food price determination attention has focused on the information theory paradigm and potential impact of publically available comparative price reports in this paper a spatial economic model is developed to describe and analyze consumer choice seller behavior and price determination in retail food markets empirical evidence is then used to test hypotheses developed from the spatial model it is concluded that the spatial model offers added explanatory power of observed food market responses to retail price reporting

integration of spatial markets studies of spatial market integration draw their implications from a theory which assumes that there are no intraregional transport costs an alternative theory is offered based on the assumptions that buyers and sellers are spatially dispersed and intraregional transport costs are significant this implies that the market is a linked oligopoly or oligopsony and that market integration tests are tests of alternative oligopoly price formation processes for example collusive basing point pricing produces results typically assumed to imply efficiently integrated markets while competitive fob pricing does not the theoretical implications are illustrated with an analysis of hog prices in canada

uma aplicacao de modelos tar para o mercado de carne de frango no brasil cointegration has been the most used technique in analyzing commodities market integration this paper discusses the use of cointegration as a mean of directly testing market integration it was pointed out the main limitations especially in relation to its adequability to the principals of the economic theory an application for the national

system theoretic time series forecasts of weekly live cattle prices multivariate time series forecasts of weekly live cattle prices in six different geographic markets are developed using a procedure based on the principles of linear systems theory these forecasts were found to be informative and superior to those obtained from an alternative model following the approach developed for stock prices by cerchi and havenner arbitrage portfolios were constructed from the model parameters a simulation exercise based on 208 weekly observations withheld from model specification and estimation suggests that these arbitrage activities would have been profitable in practice

cointegration tests and spatial price linkages in regional cattle markets this analysis empirically evaluates spatial linkages in regional cattle markets using cointegration tests of regional price series several markets were not cointegrated over the 1980 through 1987 period however significant increases in cointegration of several regional livestock markets are observed through the 1980s the increased cointegration parallels significant structural changes in the livestock industry a formal analysis of market characteristics reveals that distances between markets industry concentration ratios market volumes and market types have significant influences on cointegration relationships between markets

fostering change to sustainable consumption and production an evidence based view this note from the field is an edited version of a policy brief summarizing the key findings from the first half of the sustainable consumption research exchange network score for the policy programs in the field of sustainable consumption and production scp we recommend a framework for action to change to scp that mentions the key domains to include food mobility and energy use housing the last two clearly related to urban development it should use a systemic perspective on the scp challenge and differentiate between developed fast developing and base of the pyramid economies score focuses mainly on developed economies and here we propose to differentiate between 1 measures that fit with mainstream beliefs and paradigms here governments could make operational agreements on implementation of instruments like green public procurement stimulating ecodesign etc 2 problems where a rough agreement on goals exists but where change is radical or means are uncertain and hence planning difficult here governments could foster visioning experimentation and support e g international collaboration in leapfrogging programs 3 problems that outright clash with the mainstream beliefs and paradigms here governments could foster informed deliberation on the more fundamental issues related to markets governance and growth 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the nature and extent of the market for high quality beef in japan before the abolition of import quotas it is examined whether wagyu beef produced in japan and high quality beef produced in the united states and exported to japan are components of the same product market in addressing this issue an approach is used for defining the nature and extent of a product market relying on the concept of instantaneous causality the results for selected cuts of beef suggest that the markets are in fact separate

how fragile are fragile inferences a re evaluation of the deterrent effect of capital punishment extreme bounds analysis attempts to measure the effects of the uncertainty in the specification of the explanatory variables in a regression model on the estimated coefficients of interest standard errors for the stochastic extreme bounds are computed using the bootstrap technique state by state cross section data are used to study the deterrent effect of capital punishment in the united states in 1950 the bootstrap standard errors are sufficiently large for some bounds to suggest caution in the interpretation of the empirical results regarding the fragility of inferences for the deterrent effect of capital punishment copyright 1989 by mit press

the impact of concentration and elasticity on line of business profitability abstract this paper explores the roles played by concentration and elasticity in a model of line of business profitability it concludes that the roles are conceptually distinguishable that concentration has a seperate effect on profit via the degree of collusion which is not eliminated by its dependence on elasticity and that assertions about a bias due to the exclusion of elasticity are based on incomplete theoretical foundations

timber price dynamics following a natural catastrophe catastrophic shocks to existing stocks of a renewable resource can cause long run price shifts with timber these long run price shifts may be accompanied by a short run price drop due to salvage hurricane hugo damaged 20 of southern pine timber in the south carolina coastal plain in 1989 to estimate the short and long run effects of the hurricane on the prices of timber stocks we estimated an intervention model of the residuals of cointegration of south carolina sawtimber and pulpwood stumpage prices with prices of similar products from other regions modeling revealed a 30 negative price spike due to salvage and a long run enhancement effect leading to prices that are 10 to 30 higher than they would have been had hugo not occurred

a century of research on agricultural markets this article provides a perspective on major innovations in research on agricultural markets over the past century we review research on market structure and performance vertical coordination arrangements and institutions for producer collective action contributions to empirical modeling of agricultural price determination and marketing margins are also evaluated as are innovations in research on spatial market relationships and the role of storage finally we discuss contributions to understanding market information systems and the functioning of market based mechanisms for agri

agricultural market integration in india an analysis of select commodities one of the main arguments against agricultural trade liberalization in india is that the markets are not sufficiently integrated the present study makes a systematic attempt to assess the extent and degree of integration among select agricultural markets in india we have used the common factor representation of the cointegrated series called gonzalo granger g g model to assess the extent of market integration degree of market integration has been assessed using the persistence profile approach our results indicate that the commodity markets that do not face inter state or inter regional movement restrictions like gram and edible oils appear well integrated on the contrary rice market subject to the maximum inter state movement restrictions does not show integration at the national level the broad implication of the study is that the markets can play a more effective role if supplemented with more open policy initiatives

bootstrapping confidence intervals an application to forecasting the supply of pork the article demonstrates how the distribution free method of bootstrapping can be applied to the construction of confidence intervals for forecasts generated by a dynamic econometric model because the exogenous variables must be forecast the forecasts of the dependent variable are functions of stochastic forecast period exogenous variables a dynamic model of pork supply is used to illustrate the procedure

co integration and error correction modelling of agricultural export supply in cameroon abstract estimates of factors influencing cameroon s exports of cocoa coffee and cotton are derived in a system of equations using the engle granger and johansen co integration and error correction representation procedures two co integrating vectors involving cocoa and coffee exports as endogenous variables are identified in the system while tests for exogeneity of cotton exports are consistent with the independence of cotton from the other two commodities these findings are corroborated by estimates of a restricted error correction model which lead to acceptance of the hypothesis that cocoa and coffee exports are indeed determined endogenously to the system and not linked to cotton exports statistical significance of the error correction terms for cocoa and coffee validates the existence of an equilibrium relationship among the variables in each of these co integrating vectors the combined short run dynamic effect of lagged quantities of cocoa and coffee export domestic price ratio and gdp jointly explain changes in exports of cocoa whereas lagged quantities exported do not seem to have a significant short run dynamic effect on changes in coffee exports

sustainable consumption and production governance in countries in transition abstract unsustainable consumption and production patterns have brought human civilization to the brink of a global disaster alteration of these patterns to minimize adverse environmental impacts has become the key question of survival a question relevant for every country and citizen in this paper we are looking at trends of consumption and production in the post soviet republics these countries have a common history but they took different routes to development they are at different stages of economic growth and political processes with differences also in consumption and production related environmental pressures and policies this study is based on statistical data analysis and snap shot surveys of national experts from non governmental organizations reflecting their views and observations which often differ from official positions of national governments and international organizations in order to draw conclusions about the possibilities for further development we analyze various sustainable consumption and production indicators policy developments progress achieved and the main challenges behind sustainable consumption and production governance in these countries sustainable consumption and production policy in the countries of the region is fragmented and none of the countries uses a holistic integrated approach the influence of the eu seems to be critical for advancing sustainable development principles however the eu accession does not address the growth effect which is the main driver behind increasing environmental pressures related to consumption there is still a long way to go from this mosaic of policy elements to a coherent policy with adequate institutional support and funding mechanisms

bootstrapping the probability distribution of peak electricity demand demand for effective capacity planning an electric utility requires an estimate of the probability distribution of future maximum demand rather than simply a point prediction of expected peak this paper proposes a method of obtaining this using the bootstrapping technique of b efron 1979 and this is applied to the peak demand of an actual utility ontario hydro while the technique is constructed from the standard procedure of forecasting a future variable using regression coefficients and known values for the right hand side variables it is modified to allow for uncertainty in these independent variable forecasts as well copyright 1987 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

cross section estimation of us demand for alcoholic beverage a flexible limited dependent variable model is used to examine us demand for alcoholic beverage parameterization and distributional assumptions of the double hurdle model cragg 1971 and tobit model tobin 1958 are rejected findings suggest that price income household composition and other characteristics have significant effects on alcohol consumption income and own price elasticities are significant but relatively small

the extent pattern and degree of market integration a multivariate approach for the brazilian rice market the extent pattern and degree of integration are analyzed in a multivariate system with cointegrating restrictions the extent of the market is found by identifying locations that are linked by trade and where prices share identicall ong run information permanent component the pattern of integration characterizes interdependence and is analyzed by estimating a vector error correction model the degree of integration is calculated with persistence profiles of the long run relations we demonstrate that bivariate models are inadequate for capturing the spatial dynamics of price adjustment the methodology is applied to the brazilian rice market and policy implications are

searching for price parity in the european whitefish market the purpose of this paper is to test for price parity across different species of whitefish in the european union price parity is defined by a system of cointegrated prices and would be evidence of a single european market for whitefish whitefish are of interest because eu fishers receive the largest share of their income from these fish species notwithstanding the single market policy of the eu by establishing national and regional associations to stabilize or increase the local price of fish fishers operate as if the european market is made up of separate submarkets with price being determined largely within each submarket if whitefish markets were price cointegrated such associations would be largely ineffective in that case what are required are regulations that encompass the european market

government intervention and market integration in indonesian rice markets abstract long run spatial price relationships in indonesian rice markets and factors affecting the degree of market integration are evaluated using multivariate cointegration tests with weekly price data for the 1982 1993 period the analysis includes evaluation of pre self sufficiency and post self sufficiency periods as well as for the entire period the cointegration tests for entire indonesian rice market represented by the nine most relevant price series indicate that relative to the pre self sufficiency period the post self sufficiency period has a smaller degree of market integration the change of the degree of market integration over time indicates that rationalizing of the indonesian rice price policy beyond 1984 rice self sufficiency has resulted in a less integrated market this suggests that the policy shift has allowed the government to decrease its intervention without significantly decreasing market integration indicating that the private sector is responding to price signals appropriately it is possible that further reduction in intervention through widening the band between the floor and ceiling price could be accomplished without greatly affecting market integration regression results show that government intervention in terms of rice procurement significantly influenced market integration during the period of post self sufficiency 1985 1993 and the entire period of 1982 1993 this indicates that this aspect of government intervention has had positive influences on market integration in contrast to distribution efforts which were not found to be statistically significant procurement prices may be high and could perhaps be lowered reducing program costs regional per capita income is also found to be positively related to higher levels of market integration suggesting that in periods of economic growth government intervention may be decreased thereby reducing program costs

the probability distribution of future demand the case of hydro quebec the bootstrapping technique of efron 1979 is used to estimate the probability distribution of future electricity demand for hydro quebec the application follows the regression approach of freedman and peters 1984a b but also allows for serially correlated disturbances and uncertainty in the independent variable forecasts

the transmission of world maize price to south african maize market a threshold cointegration approach this article seeks to provide an explanation for the relationship between domestic maize price in south africa and world maize prices in order to evaluate comovement and transmission of world prices to domestic prices in sub sahara african countries this is done by comparing nested and nonnested models that capture different forms of nonlinearity in the price spread adopting a bayesian approach that allows for comparison of models using bayes factor we found that the relationship between south african price and world price for maize indicates the presence of nonlinearity in price transmission with three regimes that is triggered by the price spread in previous period

estimating policy effects on spatial market efficiency an extension to the parity bounds model the standard parity bounds model pbm is extended to allow for dynamic shifts in regime probabilities in response to changes in marketing policy the approach allows estimation of the length of the adjustment period and a statistical test for no policy effects the extended pbm is applied to maize and wheat markets in ethiopia evidence of a dynamic adjustment path is found and grain marketing reforms are found to have improved spatial efficiency in a few markets worsened it in a few others but generally to have had little effect on the spatial efficiency of ethiopian grain markets

the integration of the market for soybeans and soybean products abstract this article addresses the question of whether soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil produced in the usa and exported were part of a single world geographic market during the decade of the 1980s an answer to this question is sought using an approach to defining a geographic market based on the notion of instantaneous causality the empirical results based on prices for soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil for three spatially diffuse locations suggest that there was but a single identifiable world market for these commodities over the period of study this has implications for the continued presence of soybean production subsidies and discussions on international agreements designed to reduce or eliminate these subsidies

market integration between wild and farmed seabream and seabass in spain abstractgilthead seabream sparus aurata and european seabass dicentrarchus labrax production from aquaculture has been increasing since the 1990s nowadays about 95 of their production comes from aquaculture in this study we analyse if the rapid growth in the aquaculture production of both species has affected the capture fisheries prices of both species in other words we investigate if there is market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and european seabass in order to do this analysis we use data from the main gilthead seabream and european seabass markets in spain the results show that there is no market integration between wild and farmed gilthead seabream and european seabass this implies that capture fisheries are not affected by increases in the aquaculture production of both species but gilthead seabream and european seabass aquaculture producers face a smaller demand that explains the difficulties this aquaculture segment is facing

estimating the wetland rental fee a case study involving a taiwan wetland wetlands provide many functions that are both economic and recreational and are valuable in terms of their ecological diversity while at the same time being nonmarket value products the purpose of this study is to estimate the optimal wetland rental through estimations of both the demand and supply functions in relation to wetland the wetland supply function is directly estimated based on the data provided by the owners of the wetland while the estimation of the wetland input demand function involves using the bootstrapping and contingent visitation approaches such estimation approaches could also be applied to other nonmarket value products that give rise to environmental externalities the estimation of rental fee could provide a long term leasing contract that gives the landlord with a particular rent to lease their lands to support a wetland eco tourism park to maintain wetland for substantial management several environmental management policy implications are also addressed

getgreen vietnam towards more sustainable behaviour among the urban middle class abstract in vietnam the middle class is expected to grow from 12 million to 33 million people between 2012 and 2020 the growth causes an increase as well as a shift in consumption products that were not accessible or affordable before will become increasingly so such as cars dishwashers meat products and air conditioning in urban areas the changes are most prominent and so are the side effects increased amounts of waste smog pollution and use of fossil energy or pesticides the main objective of this study was to identify sustainable behaviour that followed or did not follow from the intervention project getgreen vietnam 604 urban middle class consumers participated in a series of sustainable consumption trainings before during and after the trainings quantitative and qualitative data was collected on 90 sustainable actions 64 of the participants self reported to be engaged in a sustainable action before the intervention and this percentage increased to 80 after the group environment and activity based meetings of getgreen vietnam project ggvn were critical for the success of the intervention participants reported that before ggvn certain actions were already habitual as a money saving strategy e g sparse electricity use or food leftovers re use or due to past scarcity e g sparse water use many participants reported the intention to buy sustainable products but fewer participants took action to do so a powerful strategy toward more sustainable consumption in vietnam can be to create more group based activities around the themes of energy and shopping for food a twofold approach is needed that both installs new sustainable consumption patterns and keeps old habits rooted in daily rituals role models should set an example for the young population and consumers and vietnamese producers should be better connected to increase mutual trust and transparency

market structure and price cost margins in a paper that has become a standard reference in the structure conductperformance approach to industrial economics cowling and waterson 1976 developed a theoretical rationale for expecting industry profitability to be positively correlated with the level of concentration their model based on a simple algebraic description of oligopoly behaviour has been interpreted as providing a justification for the common empirical practice of cross industry regression analysis of price cost margins in terms of concentration levels in the present paper we show that on further examination this model implies a joint determination of margins and concentration this provides some interesting comparative static results of relevance to inter industry differences in concentration levels equally however it leads to various cautionary insights concerning the meaning of price cost margin versus concentration regressions

how integrated is the indian wheat market abstract applying the momentum threshold autoregressive m tar model due to enders and granger enders w and granger c w j 1998 unit root tests and asymmetric adjustment with an example using the term structure of interest rates journal of business and economic statistics 16 3 pp 304 311 this article examines the relationship between the various prices of wheat quoted at different market centres in four indian states we find evidence of m tar asymmetric adjustments of wheat prices indicating that price signals within states are transmitted over time in an asymmetric manner this type of price adjusting behaviour is consistent as to how price differentials may respond to poor dissemination of knowledge regarding market conditions and high transactions costs the results offer important policy implications

spatial integration at multiple scales rice markets in madagascar the dramatic increase in the price of rice and other commodities over the past year has generated new interest in how these markets work and how they can be improved this article uses an exceptionally rich data set to test the extent to which markets in madagascar are integrated across space at different scales of analysis and to explain some of the factors that limit spatial arbitrage and price equalization within a single country we use rice price data across four quarters of 2000 2001 along with data on transportation costs and infrastructure availability for nearly 1 400 communes in madagascar to examine the extent of market integration at three different spatial scales subregional regional and national and to determine whether non integration is due to high transfer costs or lack of competition the results indicate that markets are fairly well integrated at the subregional level and that factors such as high crime rates remoteness and lack of information are among the factors limiting competition

market liberalization and integration of maize markets in malawi the paper studies the extent of market integration of maize markets in malawi in order to understand how it has been affected by market liberalization several measures of integration are introduced to analyze both the comovement of prices and the price adjustment process over time monthly retail prices of maize at eight main locations over the period january 1984 to december 1991 are considered the main conclusion is that liberalization has increased market integration

modelling trends in food market integration method and an application to tanzanian maize markets abstract pushed by increasing availability of price data and extensive market liberalisation efforts in many developing countries research on food market integration has evolved rapidly over the last two decades empirical methods to measure market integration diverged in two directions on the one hand there is the parity bounds model pbm using a switching regressions technique while on the other hand the use of threshold autoregressive tar models has been proposed this article provides a discussion on the two methods and argues that tar models are better able to capture the dynamics of the arbitrage process underlying interconnected markets furthermore we extend the standard tar model to include a time trend in both the threshold and the adjustment parameter using weekly maize price data on seven selected markets in tanzania we illustrate how both transaction cost and the speed of adjustment have changed during the nineties

identifying price linkages a review of the literature and an application to the world market of cotton this paper reviews the literature of price linkages and examines the degree to which cotton prices are linked it also tests whether such linkages have improved over the last decade it concludes that the degree of linkage has improved over the last decade while the main source of this improvement appears to be a result of short run price transmission and to a lesser extent long run co movement

price transmission and market integration vertical and horizontal price linkages for salmon relationships between prices are of interest when testing for market integration as well as analyses of supply chains a feature that has received little attention is that if two supply chains are linked by market integration at some stage then the whole supply chain will be linked furthermore the leading price in such a system can be in one supply chain and will not be revealed in market integration studies or analysis of a single supply chain an empirical analysis is provided for the supply chains for salmon which originates in norway and the united kingdom and is then sold at retail level in france as smoked salmon we find a high degree of price transmission in both supply chains as well as integrated markets

the rigidity of prices this paper uses evidence on individual transaction prices to analyze price behavior the evidence shows that for many transactions pricesremain rigid for periods exceeding one year the rigidity of price ispositively correlated with industry concentration for several productsthe correlation of price changes across buyers is low the paper alsoinvestigates the relationship between price rigidity price change andthe length of time a buyer and seller have been doing business together the author interprets the evidence as emphasizing the importance of nonprice rationing and the inadequacy of models in whichprice movements alone clear markets copyright 1986 by american economic association

cooperation v rivalry price cost margins by line of business fl c bureau of economics working papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment all data contained in them are in the public domain this includes information obtained by the commission which has become part of public record the analyses and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and do not n essarily ref1 t the views of other members of the bureau of economics other commission staff or the commission itself upon request single copies of the paper will be provided references in publications to fit bureau of economics working papers by ffc economists other than acknowledgement by a writer tnat ne has access to such unpublished materials should be cleared with the author to prot t the tentative character of these papers

evaluation of usda interval forecasts of corn and soybean prices usda world agricultural supply and demand estimates wasde price forecasts are published as an interval but are typically analyzed as point estimates thus all information about uncertainty imbedded in the forecast is ignored the purpose of this article is to evaluate the accuracy of wasde corn and soybean price forecasts using methodology suitable for testing judgmental interval forecasts accuracy tests suggest that wasde forecasts are not calibrated at the 95 confidence level for both commodities and generally not calibrated for corn but calibrated for soybeans at the implied confidence level elicited from the survey of forecast providers

sustainability meta labelling an effective measure to facilitate more sustainable consumption and production abstract arguably one of the most prominent measures to facilitate more sustainable consumption and production has been the instrument of product labelling but with a plethora of labelling schemes having been implemented by various actors over the last decade many now accuse them of being confusing rather than facilitating as a result governments in france uk and germany as well as businesses such as walmart and non governmental organisations like wwf have begun to consider seriously the implementation of some form of meta scheme that condenses existing product labels and other communication measures into an overarching sustainability message yet so far in depth studies on the potential institutionalisation of a sustainability meta labelling scheme are missing drawing upon a novel theoretically integrative framework that combines theoretical arguments of constructivist institutionalism and institutional entrepreneurship with the concept of legitimacy this paper addresses this gap by exploring how the notion of sustainability meta labelling has so far been discussed and investigating the prospects for such an overarching scheme to become institutionalised empirically the paper bases on documentary analysis and elite interviews focussed on case studies of four existing product labelling schemes eu ecolabel eu energy label marine stewardship council and fairtrade label as well as the notion of sustainability meta labelling legitimacy constructions are demonstrated rather than shown to be highly dynamic and oftentimes inherently conflicting many of these conflicts thereby appear to be likely to increase rather than decrease with the implementation of an overarching sustainability meta labelling scheme in a sense this study shows that the very issue that is claimed to drive the establishment of a sustainability meta labelling scheme the different interpretations of the sustainable development concept through different product labels might in fact pose one of the main challenges for its institutionalisation and effectiveness in facilitating more sustainable consumption and production

does the law of one price really hold for commodity prices in spite of the empirical failure of the law of one price it is usually assumed that commodity prices are perfectly arbitraged at least in the long run this paper argues that this assumption is counterfactual and that much of the empirical evidence provided to support it is flawed and affected by econometric shortcomings spurious regressions nonstationarity in the data inappropriate use of first differences an alternative methodology co integration by which a long run relationship between nonstationary series can be tested is proposed tests of nonstationarity and co integration for a group of commodities show quite uniformly that the law of one price as a long run relationship fails and that deviations from the pattern are permanent

the effects of railroad development on price convergence among the states of the usa from 1866 to 1906 this study examines the effects of the reduced transaction costs on the price behaviours in the second half of the nineteenth century where declines in transaction costs were mainly caused by railroad development during this period it employs a panel test introduced by levin and lin 1992 on the convergence of wheat and corn prices using a panel of 48 us states from 1866 to 1906 the results show that by decreasing transportation costs railroads played an important role in price convergence among states of the usa for wheat and corn during the postbellum period

how integrated are world beef markets the case of australian and u s beef markets abstract the objective of the paper is to examine market integration between australian and u s beef prices at the farmgate level if these two prices are found to be integrated then it can be alleged that australian beef prices can be used as a world price in empirical analyses and or as a reference price to measure the level of support accorded the u s beef sector co integration analysis and a time varying parameter estimation procedure based on the kalman filter model are applied the paper distinguishes between steer and cow beef segments and it uses monthly data over the 1972 1 to 1993 2 period the results indicate that australian and u s beef prices are co integrated albeit not fully and that the degree of convergence between the various price pairs has not substantially increased over time the results also suggest that australian prices can not unequivocally be adopted as a world price in empirical analyses

the structure performance relationship at the firm level abstract this letter provides an explanation for recent empirical results that suggest that market concentration has a negative effect on profitability at the firm level it also casts doubts on traditional interpretations of high market shares as evidence of market power

spatial market integration in the presence of threshold effects a large body of research has evaluated price linkages in spatially separate markets much recent research has applied models appropriate for nonstationary data such analyses have been criticized for their ignorance of transactions costs which may inhibit price adjustments and thus affect tests of integration this analysis utilizes threshold autoregression and cointegration models to account for a neutral band representing transactions costs we evaluate daily price linkages among four corn and four soybean markets in north carolina nonlinear impulse response functions are used to investigate dynamic patterns of adjustments to shocks our results confirm the presence of thresholds and indicate strong support for market integration though adjustments following shocks may take many days to be complete in every case the threshold models suggest much faster adjustments in response to deviations from equilibrium than is the case when threshold behavior is ignored a large amount of empirical research has evaluated the extent to which spatially separate markets are integrated though the term is used loosely in the literature tests of market integration usually consider the extent to which shocks are transmitted among spatially separate markets the integration of markets can have important implications for price discovery and the operation of the market since persistent deviations from integration may imply riskless profit opportunities for spatial traders

on market integration and liberalisation method and application to ethiopia the article suggests further improvements in the methodology to analyse market integration it provides corrections to and methodological extensions of recent work in this journal it also presents a way of applying market integration techniques to the analysis of shocks such as market liberalisation and war the method is applied to the effects of liberalisation and the end of the civil war on food markets in ethiopia the conclusion is that liberalisation had important effects on the long run and short run integration of food markets