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Any calls to move towards a centrally planned economy or autarky are strongly advised against, as this would only be to the detriment of food security in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia emerged as an important wheat exporter in recent years raising the question of how this will affect international wheat markets. In particular developing countries - the main destination of Russian wheat exports - could be harmed by aggressive pricing behaviour. This article analyses the exertion of price discrimination by Russian wheat exporting firms based on Krugman's pricing-to-market hypothesis. We apply Knetter's panel model to a firm-level dataset and find evidence for price-discriminating behaviour by Russian firms in 25 out of 61 destination countries over the period 2002-2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend previous modelling approaches to identify domestic price effects of export controls. We allow for smooth transition between free-trade price transmission regimes and those under export restricting regimes, using a smooth transition cointegration ( STC) approach, rather than the more common assumption that regime changes are abrupt. Our approach has the advantage that the switch in the price transmission regime may be induced not only by an actual but also by an expected policy change. Results confirm the gradual nature of the transition between the regimes, which reflect trader heterogeneity and wheat storage decisions. We find that the STC approach outperforms alternative model approaches in terms of both regime classification and goodness of fit, when explaining Ukrainian domestic wheat prices under export controls. In particular, application of the Markov-switching error correction model ( MSECM) to the same data generates results which do not reflect any identifiable economic reality (in contrast to Götz et al., ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian government implemented a wheat export tax in February 2015 to reduce food inflationary pressures resulting from the rouble's dramatic devaluation. This article discusses the causes of the rouble's instability and volatility, and the effects of the export controls on domestic wheat and bread prices. Although such export taxes are appealing to governments due to their low financial costs, we show that their economic costs are substantial in the long run. We suggest desisting from such trade-oriented measures and instead helping consumers adapt to high food prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how the market interventions of the Serbian government, among them an export ban, affected the domestic wheat market during the global commodity price peak in 2007-2008. We choose a flexible Markov-switching error-correction model as the framework for our price transmission analysis. The results show that the price transmission regime was not changed by the export ban. Thus, the export controls were not successful in dampening the domestic wheat price level. We make evident that the expected price decreasing effects of the export ban were offset by inconsistent additional policy measures and their faulty sequencing. Further, the governmental market interventions had even long-lasting destabilizing market effects. Market instability was increased particularly after the cancellation of the export ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard double auctions perfectly mimic the neoclassical idea about the functioning of markets. The efficiency of the market outcome and speed of adjustment towards equilibrium have been studied in the literature to validate economic expectations. However, only a few real world examples outside the financial sector exist. In 2000, Germany implemented a sealed-bid double auction mechanism for trading milk quota. The two main features of this mechanism are: (1) a sealed-bid double auction that produces excess demands that are covered by state reserves free of charge, and (2) a variable price band that is used to exclude price bids above a certain range. To study these regulations a sealed-bid double auction experiment is simulated and run with students. It is shown that the regulations lead to significant losses in welfare that are caused by direct effects and by an imperfect adjustment of individual bidding behaviour. Further, learning effects throughout the experiments appear to be very limited. Thus, complex auction mechanisms may need to be thoroughly tested before being introduced in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the international wheat market has been considered a good example of a market with perfect competition. Yet, several articles provide evidence of imperfect competition and price discrimination in the wheat trade. However, these studies focused on traditional high-quality wheat exporters such as Canada and the United States. In contrast, this article investigates whether Russian wheat exporters exercise market power in eight selected importing countries using the residual demand elasticity (RDE) model. The article makes two major contributions. First, it focuses on a nontraditional exporter, who exports mainly wheat of mediocre quality to low- and middle-income countries. Second, the RDE model is estimated for the first time using a nonlinear estimator, the instrumental variable Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator. This is important because the double logarithmic functional form can provide biased results in the presence of heteroskedasticity. The results indicate that Russian wheat exporters can exercise market power in only a few markets, while they are price takers in the majority of importing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Studies investigating the effects of wheat export controls on the domestic market in the exporting country itself are scarce. This paper analyses the domestic market impact of wheat export controls in Russia and Ukraine during the 2007/2008 global food crisis within a spatial price transmission approach. Using a Markov-switching vector error-correction model, we contrast our estimation for Russia and Ukraine with Germany and the USA, two countries that did not intervene in their wheat export markets. An explicit “crisis” regime during times of export controls is exclusively identified for Russia and Ukraine. We find that export restrictions temporarily reduced the degree of integration of Russian and Ukrainian domestic markets in world wheat markets, which pushed the growers prices below their long-run equilibrium level. Further, domestic markets were disconnected from their equilibrium and market instability increased. These effects were even more pronounced and long lasting in Ukraine (export quota) than in Russia (export tax). The negative market effects discouraged private investors, thereby preventing Russia and Ukraine from maximizing their grain potential and contributing to global food security. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Significant changes have taken place in the world wheat market in the last decade. Russia, a former net wheat importer, has become a leading exporter with a world market share of 11.2% in 2009. This increasing importance and the discussion about the establishment of a grain-OPEC consisting of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia has raised the issue of pricing behaviour of Russian wheat exporters. Although there are several studies on the pricing behaviour of Canadian and US wheat exporters, there is none so far for Russian wheat exporters. This study provides a quantitative analysis of the pricing behaviour of Russian wheat exporters, explicitly taking account of the export tax imposed between 2007 and 2008. We employ a pricing-to-market (PTM) model on quarterly Russian wheat-export data, covering the period from 2002 to 2010 and 25 export destinations. Our findings indicate that (i) Russian wheat exporters exercised PTM in only a few importing countries over the whole time period, and (ii) PTM behaviour was more pronounced in the aftermath of the export tax period (i.e. 2008-2010) than before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the exercise of market power by German food and beverage export industries over international markets. Two approaches are used: pricing-to-market (PTM) and residual demand elasticity (RDE). We find that, while in some cases the PTM approach indicates market power, the RDE approach does not. Competitive conduct seems to prevail in these industries. The occurrence of PTM in some cases might be explained by fixed contracts, which are often used in the food and beverage export market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]