Addressing the competitive imbalances in the dairy sector, the High Level Group of dairy market experts proposed written formal contracts between raw milk producers and processors to improve the bargaining position of producers and to stabilize milk supply. However, exclusive contracts, where a...

In 2010, the European (EU) High Level Expert Group on milk proposed the introduction of standard contracts between raw milk producers and processors to improve the bargaining position of producers and to stabilize the market by balancing dairy supply and demand. However, contracts may distort...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/13/04.

Policy makers have to choose between different potentially risk-reducing instruments regulating agri-food trade. Analysing the meat sector, the paper aims at identifying least trade distorting regulations for different policy goals relevant to the SPS agreement. For this purpose, a non-linear...

Addressing competition in Germany’s dairy sector, this paper investigates imperfect competition on the raw milk market. By using the conjectural variation approach to determine dairy processors market power towards raw milk producers, regions in Germany with a high degree of imperfect...

This paper compares various nonparametric models for the estimation of farm specific marginal costs function in the dairy sector. Specifically, locally weighted regression approaches using theory-consistent cost function frameworks as polynomials in the nonparametric approach are applied. A...