Rising concentration and consolidation of sales among large supermarket chains in the U.S. and other countries, due in part to a recent wave of mergers in food retailing, have made retailers' role in the food industry a topical issue. Using a unique micro dataset, this paper investigates...

This article tests the efficiency of the hog options market and assesses the impact of the 1996 contract redesign on efficiency. We find that the hog options market is efficient, but some options yielded excess returns during the live hogs period but not during the lean hogs period. Our findings...

The typical model of retail pricing for produce products assumes retailers set price equal to the farm price plus a certain markup. However, observations from scanner data indicate a large degree of price dispersion in the grocery retailing market. In addition to markup pricing behavior, we...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures andover–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the resultthat prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded fundamental values at the peak.The...

Rising concentration and consolidation of sales among large supermarket chains in the U.S. and other countries, due in part to a recent wave of mergers in food retailing, have made retailers' role in the food industry a topical issue. Using a unique micro dataset, this paper investigates...

The typical model of retail pricing for produce products assumes retailers set price equal to the farm price plus a certain markup. However, observations from scanner data indicate a large degree of price dispersion in the grocery retailing market. In addition to markup pricing behavior, we...

We estimate the cost of post-harvest forward contracting corn and soybeans for January and March delivery from 1980 through 2009. For both corn and soybeans we saw a downward trend in the cost of forward contract for January delivery and we conclude that the cost of forward contracting for...

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures and over–the–counter derivatives markets created a ‘‘bubble’’ in commodity prices, with the result that prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded...

In most spatial markets, firms use either FOB or uniform delivered pricing, so the competitive factors motivating this choice and its welfare implications are important research questions. Prior work on duopoly using inelastic demands leads to biased results and our model on duopsony with...

This article tests the efficiency of the hog options market and assesses the impact of the 1996 contract redesign on efficiency. We find that the hog options market is efficient, but some options yielded excess returns during the live hogs period but not during the lean hogs period. Our findings...