Abstract

The impact that added competition of imported mussels from Chile might have had on market prices is one of the main reasons given to explain the decrease in the economic performance of the mussel aquaculture sector in the European Union (EU) in the last two decades. This hypothesis has not yet been tested. In this article we test empirically for price leadership and market integration in the EU mussel market. We estimate a cointegrated vector autoregressive (CVAR) model for the French, Italian, and Spanish mussel import markets and test for price leadership. The results indicate that the import prices of Chile, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands are determined within a fully integrated market, so prices are proportional over time. All countries follow the lead of Chilean mussel prices in the French market, which are on average among the lowest of the main importers in this market. These results support the opinion that added competition from Chilean mussels may have contributed to the low prices in the EU market.

摘要

从智利进口贻贝的竞争加剧可能对市场价格产生影响，这是解释过去二十年欧盟 (EU) 贻贝水产养殖业经济表现下降的主要原因之一。该假设尚未得到检验。在本文中，我们对欧盟贻贝市场的价格领先地位和市场一体化进行了实证检验。我们估计了法国、意大利和西班牙贻贝进口市场的协整向量自回归 (CVAR) 模型，并测试了价格领先地位。结果表明，智利、比利时、西班牙、爱尔兰、意大利和荷兰的进口价格是在一个完全一体化的市场内确定的，因此价格随时间成正比。各国纷纷效仿法国市场智利贻贝价格，在该市场的主要进口商中平均排名最低。这些结果支持这样一种观点，即来自智利贻贝的竞争加剧可能导致了欧盟市场的低价格。