Do Alternative Marketing Arrangements Increase Pork Packers' Market Power?

In this article we use structural econometrics to formally test whether the use of the alternative marketing arrangements (AMAs) by pork packers is the source of their market power on the spot (cash) market for live hogs. We specify the pork packers' conjectures of the change in the industry total market procurement of live hogs through the spot market with respect to their AMAs stocks. The test is carried out using the mandatory price reporting data. Our results show that pork packers have statistically significant market power on the spot market for live hogs, but the source of that market power cannot be narrowed down to the existence of AMAs stocks.     

Canadian Exports of Livestock and Meat to the United States

Canadian exports of beef and live cattle to the United States have increased significantly since the late 1980s. Hog and pork exports have increased since the mid-1990s. Major factors affecting exports of beef, pork, cattle and hogs from Canada to the United States include the exchange rate, increased Canadian production, Canada-U.S. price differentials and trade liberalization under the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989. Increased Canadian exports have resulted in small but significant reductions in U.S. domestic prices of beef, pork and hogs.     

Testing for Processor Market Power in the Markets for Cattle and Hogs in Canada

Deviations of livestock input prices from processor marginal value product are usually interpreted as an indication of the application of market power by the meat packing industry. However, market power depends on economic conditions that can influence the behavior of meat packers in the market for cattle and hogs. An industry-level translog profit function is applied to data on the Canadian finished cattle and hog markets and industry-wide oligopsony market power functions are estimated. The estimates suggest beef packers exercised a small but sustained amount of market power in the Canadian finished cattle market from 1978 to 1997. This is not the case in the market for hogs, which was competitive from 1960 to 1997. Application of market power in packers'purchases of farm animals decreased with increases in the utilization of domestic supply of slaughter animals and with increased levels of livestock exports. Livestock productivity increases appear to have significantly enhanced oligopsony power in packers'purchases of farm animals. The analysis suggests that beef processors may exert market power when cattle prices are relatively higher.     

Could packers manipulate spot markets by tying contracts to futures prices? And do they?

Some producers, policy makers, and researchers claim that packers influence cash prices through contracts tied to futures prices. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical study on the price effects of contract-pricing terms linked to futures price and the related formula pricing terms linked to a cash price. We show that contract-pricing terms tied to a cattle futures price can theoretically be used to reduce the cash price. Furthermore, the model demonstrates that such tied-to-a-futures-price contract-pricing clauses and the related tied-to-a-cash-price formula pricing clauses can be substitutable tools for packers to depress the cash cattle price. Nevertheless, although empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model they show that while such manipulations may occur, their market power impact appears quite small.     

Simulating the Impacts of Contract Supplies in a Spot Market–Contract Market Equilibrium Setting

This article embeds a principal–agent model within a market equilibrium model of contract and cash markets to analyze the impact of contracting on the spot market for hogs. The equilibrium model incorporates both quality differentiation in the contract market and an endogenously determined cash market price. For three types of contracting scenarios, market equilibrium conditions are derived, and results are presented for a numerical example. Contrary to some empirical results, our model shows that the increased supply of hogs under typical formula-price contracts can increase or decrease the cash market price, depending on the relative size of overall contract supplies.     

Regime switching and oligopsony power: the case of U.S. beef processing

In this article, we estimate a model of oligopsony behavior under imperfect monitoring of rival actions to analyze weekly marketing margin data for the U.S. beef packing industry. Oligopsonists are hypothesized to follow a discontinuous pricing strategy in equilibrium, and we focus on shocks in the normal throughput of supply as a potential catalyst for regime switching between cooperative and noncooperative phases. We adopt an algorithm developed by Bellone (2005) that relies on Hamilton’s (1989) multivariate first‐order Markov process to test for the cooperative/noncooperative switching behavior. We find strong evidence that links switching conduct by packers to disruptions in coordinating the derived demands for processed beef with the supply of live cattle. Once switched, cooperative regimes lasted an average of 21 weeks, while noncooperative regimes averaged 33 weeks. The average marketing margin for processed beef was 68% lower in the noncooperative regimes compared to the cooperative regimes. This led to an annual average increase in profits of 408 million dollars to the beef packing industry and about an 8–9% reduction in live cattle prices.     

Estimated Value of Increased Pricing Accuracy for Fed Cattle

To improve vertical market coordination beef packers have introduced fed cattle grid pricing systems that offer premiums or discounts for varying carcass quality and yield grades. This study calculates the value of cattle quality information for producers considering live, dressed, and grid pricing alternatives. The value of fed cattle quality and yield grade information is at least $15/head. When fed cattle are sold on a live weight basis, high-quality cattle subsidize low-quality cattle by an average of $30/head. Price signals that could improve beef market coordination are ignored when fed cattle are marketed using traditional live or dressed weight methods.     

Demand for animal‐derived food in selected Asian countries: A system‐wide analysis

Food consumption patterns in Asia show a trend away from staples toward high protein food derived from animal and dairy products, fruit and vegetables, fats and oils. Such changes in food consumption patterns are due to rising incomes, urbanization, globalization, and modernization of marketing infrastructure. In this article, we analyze the demand for the animal‐derived food group comprising meat (chicken, beef, pork, and mutton), eggs and fish, and derive income and price elasticities in seven Asian countries using the system‐wide approach. Demand homogeneity and Slutsky symmetry properties were tested and found to be compatible with the data. Our findings reveal that animal‐derived food as a group is a necessity (except in Taiwan) and its demand is price inelastic (except in Taiwan and Sri Lanka). The implied unconditional demand elasticities reveal that, in all countries (except beef in Japan and Taiwan), chicken, beef, pork, mutton, eggs and fish (except in Taiwan) are all necessities and the demand for all types of animal‐derived food in all seven countries are mostly price inelastic. The cross‐price elasticity estimates are mostly found to be positive, meaning that there is a higher degree of substitutability between chicken, beef, pork, mutton, eggs, and fish.     

Cattle sharing and rental contracts in an Agrarian economy: evidence from Ethiopia

Empirical evidence on the role of cattle sharing and rental contracts in agrarian economies is limited. This article is an investigation of different types of cattle sharing and rental contracts producers in rural Ethiopia adopt. It also investigates why households in rural Ethiopia rely on these contracts that are vulnerable and therefore subject to potential moral hazard problems described in earlier literature. We apply random effect probit and control function econometric methods to household panel data collected in 2005 and 2007 from two agro‐ecological zones in Ethiopia. Controlling for the endogeneity of access to livestock credit, we find that contracts are spatially fragmented and better developed where population density is high and credit and insurance markets are poorly developed. We also find that contracts help cash poor and credit constrained households to improve their herd dynamics, to get access to nonlivestock resources (land, labor and cash) and share risks that could have been difficult without the contract. We show that contracts are rational responses of residents in rural communities characterized by imperfect credit and insurance services, since households with better access to credit are less likely to rely on contracts.     

An Econometric Analysis of Total (Domestic) and Import Demand for Beef in Hong Kong

This paper presents an applied econometric analysis of total (domestic and import) demand for beef in Hong Kong for the period 1970 to 1988. The estimates are in logarithmic form and provide elasticity estimates for beef demand (domestic and import) in Hong Kong. Variables in the estimated domestic demand models (per capita and aggregate) include own price, prices of a substitute (pork) and a complement (rice) and income. Variables in the estimated import demand model include demand side variables (price of beef, price of pork, price of rice and income) and the price of imported live cattle as a supply shifting variable. The elasticities were inelastic for the domestic demand models while most of those for the import demand model were elastic.     

The Collusion-deterring Effect of Pre-attributed Supplies and the Hog Auction in Quebec

The hog/pork industry in Quebec has been going through major institutional changes since 1989, the year an electronic auction was put in place to market all of the hogs in the province. Because the auction's ability to generate high prices did not meet the expectations of hog producers, the pure auction system was replaced by a hybrid one in 1994. In this system, most of the hog supply was pre-attributed to processors at a negotiated price based on the US. price while the remainder of the provincial supply of hogs was sold through the auction. In this paper, we investigate how a seemingly inefficient marketing mechanism like pre-attributions can increase the efficiency of a usually efficient mechanism like an auction. We present theoretical arguments regarding the sustainability of collusion under the pure auction and hybrid systems in addition to analyzing auction prices with modern time series tools.     

The law and economics of Canada's WTO litigation contesting U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL)

We explain the interplay of law and economics in the successful WTO challenge by Canada of U.S. mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) measures for beef and pork, which hinged on origin of livestock used in U.S. meat production. Canada mounted a successful legal and economic strategy to convince WTO adjudicating bodies that the United States had violated specific WTO provisions. Canada's economic evidence shows that through costs of segregation the COOL measure harmed the competitive position of Canadian cattle and hogs in the U.S. market. Economic evidence was built into the strategy and cited by the WTO Panels in support of their legal findings that the COOL measure violated U.S. obligations under WTO agreements. Canada was awarded rights to more than one billion Canadian dollars in retaliation and the United States responded by eliminating the offending COOL measure. The COOL case demonstrates how economic and econometric evidence can be used in complex dispute settlement proceedings dealing with technical trade barriers. Economics is especially valuable in the initial stage of framing the effects at issue, in the intermediate stages of documenting empirical causation and in the final stage of litigation, which was to calculate and defend the amount of retaliation.     

Market Power in Canadian Beef Packing

Concentration levels in Canadian beef packing have increased dramatically over the last two decades, raising concerns about the possible use of market power in cattle procurement markets. This paper uses establishment‐level data to test the hypothesis that Canadian beef packers use oligopsony power to pay lower prices for cattle than those which would prevail in a competitive market. A four‐equation econometric system is estimated using generalized method of moments. No evidence is found that beef packers behaved in an anticompetitive manner on a national basis when procuring cattle during the period examined. This reinforces conclusions reached by previous studies using different data sets and estimation methods. However, given the lack of assurances that the U.S. slaughter market will remain open to Canadian cattle exporters, regulators must remain vigilant in monitoring the procurement practices of beef packers. There is also a need for greater levels of data disaggregation to allow fed and cull cattle procurement markets to be studied separately, perhaps even on a regional basis. Les niveaux de concentration dans l’industrie de l’abattage du b?uf au Canada ont augmenté considérablement au cours des deux dernières décennies, ce qui laisse craindre l’exercice possible de pouvoir de marché sur les marchés d’approvisionnement de bovins. Dans le présent article, nous avons utilisé des données d’entreprises pour vérifier l’hypothèse selon laquelle les entreprises de transformation du b?uf au Canada exerceraient un pouvoir d’oligopsone pour se procurer des bovins à des prix moins élevés que ceux qui prévaudraient dans un marché concurrentiel. Nous avons estimé un système économétrique de quatre équations à l’aide de la méthode des moments généralisés (GMM). Nous n’avons trouvé aucune preuve permettant de croire que les transformateurs de viande de b?uf au Canada se sont comportés de façon anticoncurrentielle lorsqu’ils se sont approvisionnés en bovins durant la période couverte par l’étude. Nos conclusions renforcent celles d’études antérieures réalisées à partir de données et de méthodes d’estimation différentes. Toutefois, compte tenu de l’incertitude quant à l’ouverture de l’industrie étatsunienne de l’abattage aux exportateurs de bovins canadiens, les organismes de réglementation doivent surveiller avec vigilance les pratiques d’achats des transformateurs de b?uf. Il faudrait également effectuer une désagrégation des données plus poussée pour étudier séparément les marchés d’approvisionnement de bovins engraissés et de bovins de réforme, et ce, peut‐être même à l’échelle régionale.     

The Competitive Implications of Top-of-the-Market and Related Contract-Pricing Clauses

This article examines the competitive implications of contract pricing arrangements, which link the contract price to the subsequent cash price. We focus on so-called "top-of-the-market pricing" (TOMP) in cattle procurement. The TOMP clause is shown to have anticompetitive consequences when the same buyers who purchase contract cattle with the TOMP clause also compete to procure cattle in the subsequent spot market. The TOMP clause reduces packers' incentives to compete aggressively in the spot market. Although TOMP pricing is not in producers' collective interest, rational sellers may nonetheless sign these contracts with little or no financial inducement.     

China as a Potential Market for U.S. Pork Exports

This study provides details of emerging opportunities for U.S. pork exporters following the U.S.–China WTO Accession Agreement. The Agreement will enable the United States to gain unprecedented access to the Chinese pork market. The United States enjoys comparative advantages in producing hogs at lower cost, higher quality, and greater efficiency. Moreover, Chinese preference for pork is highly complementary to that of U.S. consumers. Therefore, U.S. pork exporters are expected to target primarily the Chinese variety meats market. Although China is expected to remain a surplus pork production nation, demographic shifts could provide additional opportunities for U.S. pork exporters to increase sales of more premium cuts for urban consumers in China.     

中国肉牛养殖效率差异及提升途径研究

[目的]环境条件差异是我国农牧业发展的客观存在,也是导致农牧业投入产出效率千差万别的重要原因,不考虑环境条件影响的效率分析容易模糊农户的投入产出效率,进而可能掩盖效率差异的原因。通过分析发现全国各地区肉牛养殖存在着客观差异,利用模型处理将各地区环境影响处理到最小,从而得到更为准确的肉牛养殖技术效率值。[方法]文章利用国家肉牛牦牛产业技术体系肉牛养殖投入产出监测数据,采用三阶段DEA模型方法,研究农户肉牛养殖投入产出效率差异及其改善途径。[结果]（1）肉牛养殖投入产出效率与环境条件有密切的关系;（2）剔除环境条件差异影响后,87.11%样本的肉牛养殖投入产出效率发生显著变化,其中47.42%效率下降,39.69%效率提升;（3）投入要素冗余问题是肉牛养殖效率差异的本质,投入要素的冗余在剔环境条件影响后也发生了显著变化,进一步的分析发现我国肉牛养殖劳动力冗余问题在西南产区与东北产区较严重,而饲料投入冗余则呈现牧区、农区、农牧交错带地区逐渐增加的状态。[结论]提升我国肉牛投入产出效率要注重改善饲料投入冗余问题,西南和东北产区还要注重改善劳动力投入冗余的问题。     

Contracting in the U.S. Pork and Beef Industries: Extent, Motives, and Issues

Contracting has increased significantly in the US livestock-meat sector. Over half of finished hogs and about a third of fed cattle are marketed under some form of contract. Contracting motives vary by type of contract, whether buyer or seller, and by commodity. Several motives for buyers and sellers of finished hogs and fed cattle are identified and discussed. Issues related to contracting per se and the trend toward increased contracting have been raised by contracting opponents, politicians, and economists. Several of these issues are discussed under six headings. Lastly, agricultural economists are encouraged to become actively involved in addressing these issues, especially providing pragmatic education and assistance to those involved in contracting.     

Impacts of Animal Well‐Being and Welfare Media on Meat Demand

This article provides the first known examination of how animal welfare information provided by media sources impacts beef, pork and poultry demand. Results suggest that media attention to animal welfare has a small, but statistically significant impact on meat demand. Long‐run pork and poultry demand are hampered by increasing media attention whereas beef demand is not directly impacted. Loss in consumer demand is found to come from exiting the meat complex rather than spilling over and enhancing demand of competing meats. An outline of economic implications is provided for the broader discussion of animal welfare.     

Impacts of Declining U.S. Retail Beef Demand on Farm-Level Beef Prices and Production

A systems model was estimated to determine the effects of declining U.S. retail beef demand on farm-level beef prices and production. Retail beef demand declined by nearly 66% from 1976 to 1999. Results indicate autonomous shifts in retail demand significantly impacted farm-level demands and production. Based on equilibrium multipliers, the 1976–99 reduction in beef demand decreased real slaughter cattle prices and production by 32.1% and 11.2%, respectively. Real feeder cattle prices and production decreased by 8.0% and 22.6%, respectively. Combining the decreases in farm prices and production, slaughter and feeder cattle producers experienced a real revenue reduction of $13.3 billion (61%) due to the long-term decline in demand.     

中国南方肉牛生产空间关联分析及产业发展路径研究

[目的]为了厘清中国南方地区肉牛生产的空间关联关系,挖掘南方地区牛肉增产潜力,探索统一的生产大市场建设路径。[方法]文章基于2008—2020年肉牛生产数据,采用修正后的引力模型构建了南方地区15个省（市、区）的肉牛生产空间关联关系,运用社会网络分析法刻画了各地在肉牛生产空间关联网络中的地位和传导方向。[结果]（1）南方地区肉牛生产具有较强的空间关联性,其关联关系趋于稳定,但仍有巨大发展空间。（2）整体来看,关联网络中,安徽、贵州、四川和云南扮演“中心行动者”的角色;湖南和江西扮演“中介行动者”的角色,上海、福建、浙江和江苏扮演“边缘行动者”的角色。（3）生产板块已初具规模,贵州、云南、广西、四川和湖南是动能传递的终点,是发展南方地区肉牛生产的钥匙。[结论]未来南方肉牛生产大市场建设应在大力发展西南肉牛优势养殖区的基础上,加快建设湖南和江西的基础设施,充分发挥其地理区位的优越性和中介功能。加强省际交流,改良牛种,保障溢出板块的生产动能,完善双向溢出板块的连接功能,挖掘接收板块的生产潜力,布局完善的生产功能区。