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The efficiency and the degree of competition in food processing and marketing are best evaluated by measuring the vertical price transmission (VPT) along the food chain from producers to consumers. A data set of individual retail prices in Germany is investigated in order to assess the impact of cross-sectional aggregation on the measurement of VPT.

The study investigates staggering and synchronization of weekly prices for 10 food products in 3 grocery stores in Germany over the period of May 1995 to December 2000. It concluded that pricing behaviour in German food comes very close to perfect staggering, contradicts empirical findings, such as those of Lach and Tsiddon (1996), who report evidence for across-store staggering but within-store synchronization.

Previous literature has demonstrated that low-income people are more likely to settle for poor health choices in developed countries. By using income as a budget constraint and signal for future wellbeing in a life-course utility model, we examine the association amongst income and overweight. The data used for this study are from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). Estimations are conducted for overweight initiation, cessation, and participation mirroring a decision to begin and a past decision to not terminate. Our findings propose that body weight and the likelihood of overweight commencement rise with additional income but at a diminishing degree, representing a concave relation; while the likelihood of overweight discontinuance declines with additional income but at an accelerating degree, suggesting a convex relation. We presume that, as opposed to developed countries, low-income people are less inclined to be overweight in China, a country in transition. This could be explained by an income constraint for unhealthy foodstuff. Nevertheless, it will switch when income surpasses the critical threshold of the concave or inverted U-shape curve indicating that low-income people appear to receive not as much utility from future health. Specifically, this adjustment seems to occur earlier for females and inhabitants of urban areas.

The production of farmed fish is growing rapidly and presents a sustainable and possibly low-cost alternative to wild fish. Thus, we may expect retail prices of farmed to be lower than prices of wild fish and demand to be less elastic. Otherwise, marketing of farmed fish may generate some extra value that justifies higher prices and may exhibit more elastic demand. To test these hypotheses, we employ monthly household scanner panel data for Germany from 2006 to 2010 for six frozen seafood products that include farmed and wild fish. A QUAIDS model is estimated by a consistent two-step procedure to account for censoring of the dependent variable. We find consumers to be price sensitive, particularly with regard to the high-value seafood species salmon and shrimp. This price elastic market implies that the German seafood industry still has the potential for growing revenues if production increases.

Indexfonds sind aufgrund ihrer Terminmarktgeschäfte mit Agrarrohstoffen ins Zentrum öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeit und Kritik geraten. Hierzu kursieren in den Medien zahlreiche Falschinformationen über die Funktionsweise der Geschäftsmodelle passiver Indexfonds, deren Korrektur sich durch klar identifizierbare Forschungslücken der empirischen Literatur verzögert hat. Gleichwohl können folgende Erkenntnisse helfen, die Debatte zu versachlichen: Indexfonds folgen einer passiven Handelsstrategie. Sie zeichnen einen Markttrend nach. Hiervon geht eine preisstabilisierende Wirkung aus. Deshalb ist zu befürchten, dass regulatorische Einschränkungen der Geschäftsaktivität von Indexfonds in Form von strengen Positionslimits oder Preislimits der Funktionsweise von Terminmärkten nicht zuträglich, sondern abträglich sind.

Abstract: The demand on the German potato market has been under significant change in the last decades. The use of potatoes has shifted from consumption of table stock potatoes to processed potato products. Pavlista and Feuz (American Journal of Potato Research, 82:339–343, 2005) describe the same development for the U.S. potato market and show that the demand has become more elastic after this shift. We test this hypothesis for the German market and find almost the same impact on the elasticity of demand. However, as the German reunification coincides with the shift in demand, its impact is indistinguishable from the underlying hypothesis.

We analyse the technical efficiency of dairy farms in Schleswig‐Holstein that took part in the European Farm Credit Programme over the period 1987 to 1994. One goal of this programme is to increase the productivity of farms. We test whether participants show higher technical efficiency. We utilise a stochastic frontier model that allows for heteroscedasticity and estimation of determinants of technical inefficiency. Statistical tests indicate dominance of this model over alternative specifications. On average, we observe a high level of technical efficiency between 1987–94, but participation in the programme has rather led to a slight decrease. Thus, the programme seems to have failed to increase the competitiveness of farms.

In vielen Studien werden die Erkenntnisse der Cointegrationstheorie bei der Bestimmung symmetrischer Preisanpassungen auf räumlich oder vertikal getrennten Märkten umgesetzt. Bei der Identifikation asymmetrischer Preisanpassungsprozesse hingegen wird immer noch der Ansatz von Wolffram aus dem Jahre 1971 benutzt. Im folgenden Beitrag werden die Unzulänglichkeiten dieses Ansatzes aufgezeigt. Darauf aufbauend werden unter Berücksichtigung der Eigenschaften integrierter Prozesse adäquate Modelle zur Messung asymmetrischer Preisanpassungsprozesse entwickelt. Diese Modelle werden auf Preisdaten für den Weltweizenmarkt angewendet, für den erst kürzlich - unter Verwendung des klassischen Ansatzes - asymmetrische Preisanpassungsreaktionen nachgewiesen wurden (Mohanty, Peterson & Kruse 1995).