Price Transmission in the European Tomatoes and Cauliflowers Sectors

Abstract

The paper explores the characteristics of spatial price movements for fresh vegetables. The analysis is conducted on tomato and cauliflower prices collected on main production and consumption European markets. We estimate an asymmetric threshold autoregressive econometric model and provide estimates of transaction costs and speeds of price transmission among spatially separated markets. We assess the average elapsing time for the transmission of price shocks. In eight of ten cases we found that spatial price transmissions is not symmetric. Moreover in most cases we conclude that tomato and cauliflower markets are not efficient. We convey interesting policy considerations for the fresh vegetables sectors.