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This article investigates cross‐market reallocation of trade to mitigate negative effects of large economic shocks. We propose a simple measure of trade reallocation and apply it to Norwegian exports during the great trade collapse following the financial crisis in 2008–2009. The results indicate statistically significant cross‐market reallocation of trade away from markets hit hard by the crisis as measured by GDP/growth. Norwegian exports declined by 16.9% from 2008 and 2009. Without reallocation, the decline would have been between 1.6 and 3.8 percentage points greater. Successful reallocation at the firm level is done primarily along the intensive margin, by shifting physical products towards less affected markets within their pre‐crisis trade networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on trade relationships has documented a high rate of relationship breakup and churning. We use data on Norwegian exports to document two stylized facts about the stability of trade relationships. First, the probability of relationship breakup increases in the deviation of the relationship‐specific price from a reference price. Second, relationship hazards follow Zipf's law. We propose a search model with limited information and search frictions to explain these facts. Reference prices provide information on outside trade options that inform optimal breakups, leading to the first stylized fact. Strong heterogeneity in breakup frictions across relationships can explain the Zipf's law hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) together with other natural gas liquids (NGLs) have played an important role in the current U.S. shale gas boom. Depressed gas prices in recent years have made pure natural gas operations less profitable. The result is that liquids components in gas production have become increasingly important in ensuring the profitability of shale gas operations. In this paper we investigate whether the shale gas expansion, which has led to an increase in associated LPG production, has also affected the historically strong relationship between LPG and oil prices. Revealing the strength and stability of the LPG/oil relationship is relevant when it comes to the future profitability and development of the U.S. natural gas sector. Our results suggest that the LPG/oil relationship has weakened in recent years with a move towards cheaper liquids relative to oil. This is consistent with developments in the natural gas sector with increased liquids production. A consequence is that U.S. natural gas operations cannot automatically rely on high liquids prices to ensure profitability. Keywords: Liquefied petroleum gas, Natural gas, Oil, Cointegration, Price analysis, 1. INTRODUCTION The U.S. natural gas market has changed dramatically in recent years. The shale gas boom has increased domestic natural gas production to the degree that only minimal LNG [...]

We analyze fish pricing in the São Paulo wholesale market, the second largest seafood market in South America. Quantitative price analysis is complemented by interviews with participants in the value chain to answer how the multitude of fish products supplied in this market are related and the challenges facing future growth. The results reveal a clear separate pricing of domestically produced fishery species (whitefish and pelagics) from the internationally traded aquaculture species (tilapia and salmon). Tilapia and salmon are uniquely priced, less volatile and more persistent with a price dynamic more akin to local terrestrial meats. Fishery prices show large month-by-month fluctuations and compete more with each other. Participants in the different levels of the value chain corroborate the uniqueness of salmon and state a preference for stable availability and low prices, with less concern about the specific sourcing of fish (aquaculture/fisher, or domestic/imported). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global seafood supply is increasing and seafood prices are stable, despite the plateauing of global wild-caught fishery harvests and reports of collapsing fish stocks. This trend is largely due to rapid growth in aquaculture (farmed seafood), which now accounts for roughly half of the global seafood supply. Although aquaculture is a key contributor to food security, fish farming interacts closely with the surrounding ecosystem, and its rapid global growth raises many environmental concerns. Potential negative externalities include decreases in water quality, disease spillovers, genetic interactions between wild and domesticated fish, overuse of antibiotics, and pressures on fish stocks from reliance on wild-caught fish for feed. We show that the environmental externalities of aquaculture can be positive or negative, that some externalities are not true externalities because firms have incentives to internalize them, that some perceived externalities do not exist, and that the remaining externalities can be addressed primarily through spatial management. Because outcomes are strongly influenced by the management of spatial issues such as the siting of production facilities, management challenges include both commons and anticommons problems. We conclude that management should focus on spatial approaches, adaptation to climate change, and facilitating technological innovation to address externalities and encourage sustainable development of the aquaculture sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many price indices are constructed using bilateral transaction prices. This paper shows how the time series behavior of cross‐sectional price moments can reveal useful information about pricing behavior in bilateral transactions markets. Inference is formalized in a microlevel price determination model that allows for rigid pricing at the level of individual buyer/seller transactions as well as asymmetries in bargaining power. The model is used to estimate pricing rigidities in Norwegian salmon export transactions. Results suggest a high rate of price revisions and an informative salmon price index. The moments suggest price revisions are conducted at fixed time intervals consistent with optimal price revisions under costly information and that price revisions are more likely when transaction prices are below the reference price in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A representative and unbiased fish price index is an important tool to measure price risk, as well as for production and marketing management. This paper investigates the relationship between one of the primary price indices of farmed salmon, the Fish Pool Index, and the stock prices of major publicly traded salmon companies. We document that stock prices reflect salmon price information earlier than the Fish Pool Index. Furthermore, this effect is shown to be greater for larger companies. This identifies a possible source of bias in the salmon futures pricing design that relies on the index, which can negatively affect the perceived unbiasedness of contracting. The results also point to potential company-size effects on salmon pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates potential economic reasons why the production of trout is maintained in Norway by analyzing prices and production for Norwegian Atlantic salmon and trout. The species Atlantic salmon dominates the global salmon market, but its two largest producers, Norway and Chile also farm in sea pens significant quantities of large rainbow trout (as opposed to portion-sized Rainbow trout farmed in freshwaters in other parts of the World, e.g., Iran, Peru, Turkey, and others). Suggesting that these trout have some attributes that make it a useful complement to Atlantic salmon. We investigate development in supply volumes of these species and conduct a cointegration analysis using monthly prices from 2000 to 2018. The results show that the markets for fresh and frozen rainbow trout are tightly integrated with fresh Atlantic salmon, and, where the latter is a price leader. This means that many consumers consider the two products as substitutes, with no clear preferences. There is no apparent productivity argument for the continued production of rainbow trout vis-à-vis Atlantic salmon. However, there may exist a fringe of consumers that prefer its characteristics, motivating firms to maintain its production as a means of diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a method to estimate Markov-switching vector autoregressive models that combines (integrated over latent states) marginal likelihood and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. The method is compared to commonly used implementations of Gibbs sampling. The proposed method is found to be numerically robust, flexible with respect to model specification and easy to implement using the Stan software package. The methodology is illustrated on a real data application exploring time-varying cointegration relationships in a data set consisting of crude oil and natural gas prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how transaction data can be used to shed light on trade dynamics in seafood exports, with Norwegian salmon exports as the case. There is a large literature on exports and imports of salmon between countries, but less is known about how the heterogeneity of exporters and importers relates to the aggregate data. We utilize transaction data for all exports of salmon in the period 2010–2014 and show that firms involved in salmon exports holds several of the characteristics that are commonly found in the international trade literature, but differs in some important dimensions. Most exporters of salmon connect to relatively many importers and serve many different destination markets. Short-lived trade relations are shown to account for a large share of export values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses transaction data to examine hedging efficiency in a new futures exchange; the Fish Pool salmon futures exchange in Norway. The paper utilizes data on firm‐level exporter/importer transaction prices to quantify firm‐level futures hedging efficiency. This allows us to address heterogeneity in hedging efficiency and basis risk at the firm level. The main result of this paper shows that larger firms with greater trade partner diversification have lower basis risk. Such firms align their internal transaction price closer to the common spot price in the market, which encourages greater futures market participation. Results are discussed in light of recent declines in participation in the salmon futures exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and estimates a two‐factor competitive storage model for the purpose of pricing commodity futures. The empirical relevance of the model is evaluated for US natural gas and crude oil futures by comparing the pricing performance to reduced form models. Results suggest jump models, both reduced form and economic, improve modeling due to incorporating pricing discontinuities. Furthermore, the economic model precludes carry arbitrage, which appears relevant for pricing natural gas futures. For crude oil, the reduced form models produce superior pricing under nonstationary market conditions, and the economic model produces superior long‐dated futures pricing under stationarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]