A number of past authors have argued that vertical coordination strategies lie along a continuum running from spot markets to vertical integration. However, the strategies that make up the middle of this continuum have remained ill defined and the sense in which the continuum is truly a...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In the Fall of 1994, researchers in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University identified the following two questions: 1.To what degree (if any) are smaller agribusiness and food industry firms involved in international markets? 2.To what degree (if...

Transaction cost economics revolutionized economists understanding of coordination strategy decisions, bringing into the economic equation questions of how the attributes of a transaction affect the governance decision, particularly given the reality of bounded rationality and possibility for...

Fundamental changes are underway in the U.S. agri-food system, changes that are altering traditional marketing relationships. Parts of the food system are becoming tightly integrated, such as the poultry subsector and, increasingly, the pork subsector. The tightening of vertical linkages has...

The European food system is undergoing significant change driven both by global competitive forces and local conditions. Market globalization and technological innovation are interacting with the reform of EU's agricultural policies (CAP) and a renewed interest by the European society in the...

The prevailing agricultural economics epistemology of positivistic knowledge is argued to be inappropriate for the study of agribusiness. In contrast to the traditional arenas of agricultural economics study, agribusiness research should be designed to be (1) theory-building, rather than theory...