Substantial danger exists that politically prescribed market interventions, designed to counter a supposed failure of the markets, will leave markets functioning worse rather than better. This is particularly true of Eastern European transition countries, where institutional regulations function...

Es besteht eine erhebliche Gefahr, dass politisch verordnete Markteingriffe, die einem vermeintlichen Versagen der Märkte entgegenwirken sollen, Agrarmärkte nicht besser sondern schlechter funktionieren lassen. Dies gilt einmal mehr für osteuropäische Transformationsländer mit einem...

For quite some time long-only index funds have been suspected of being responsible for price increases in agricultural futures markets. This suspicion has prompted demands to drastically limit long-only index funds' scope of activity. Such demands and their underlying diagnoses, however,...

Long-only-Indexfonds stehen seit geraumer Zeit unter Verdacht, für die Preisanstiege an landwirtschaftlichen Warenterminmärkten verantwortlich zu sein. Hieraus wird die Forderung abgleitet, den Aktivitätsradius dieser Indexfonds drastisch einzuschränken. Allerdings stehen solche Forderungen...

Die vergangenen anderthalb Jahre haben sich für die Getreideproduzenten weltweit und in der EU zeitweise von ihrer besten Seite präsentiert. Die gezahlten Preise für Weizen haben ein Rekordhoch erreicht, von Mai 2007 bis Februar 2008 haben sie sich um mehr als das 1,7fache erhöht. Bis Juli...

Retail pricing strategies incorporate promotions, sales, and rigidities. A number of models have been proposed in particular to explain the occurrence of sales. Focussing on the market for fresh foods the model by Varian and the loss leader argument seem to be intuitively best fitting to the...

Temporary price reductions (sales) as a means of promotional measures have become an increasingly important tool in the marketing mix of German food retailers. Various models have been proposed to explain the rationales behind such pricing strategies. Recently these models have been extended by...

The impact of cross sectional aggregation over individual retail stores on the estimation and testing of vertical price transmission is investigated using a unique data set of individual retail prices. Systematic differences between the results of estimations using aggregated data on the one...

Using a unique panel data set for German grocery prices we find significant price synchronization within food retail chains as well as within individual food stores (between products). Price synchronization between chains appears to be less pronounced. Common shocks can only explain some...