TESTING INTERNATIONAL PRICE TRANSMISSION UNDER ...

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International Soft Wheat Markets Under Policy Intervention Both the changes in the CAP and those implied by the URAA implementation are likely to have deeply affected international price transmission for soft wheat. Summing up, it is fairly clear that in the past thirty years the EU price has somehow been “isolated” from world markets, bounded from below by the intervention price (export subsidies 46 are meant to cover the difference between domestic prices and the world ones) and from above by a variable levy and, afterwards, by the “155% rule” established during the URAA. The most relevant EU trade policies for cereals are then export refunds and variable levies, with the objective of ensuring the maintenance of high prices on domestic markets. In addition to the CAP reforms and the URAA, to the analysis that will follow, at least another event is worth of mention. Rather awkwardly, in 2002, unusual circumstances on world markets caused the EU price to be quite low despite the peak in US prices. This can be explained by the way EU import duties are calculated (Binfield 2002; Morgan 2003). In a nutshell, the shortages of milling quality wheat, due to poor harvests in US, Canada and Australia, had resulted in an increase of the US price for wheat. Since this price is used as the reference price to calculate EU import duties, the duties had fallen to zero. At the same time, large crops in Russia and the Ukraine increased the supply of feed quality wheat, that could enter the EU duty free. In practice, due to the lack of an import duty, and thanks to their proximity, Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports could enter into the EU at prices lower than domestic EU wheat prices, depressing them. The EU reckoned the situation as serious enough to change the EU protection system for cereals: on January 1, 2003, a Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) of less than 3.0 Mt 47 was introduced for medium and low quality grains that are not traditionally imported in the EU from the US or Canada (the EU’s major grain trading partners that are part of the WTO). The situation is then unlikely to occur again. In the very last years, commodity world markets have been characterized by soaring food prices because of both transitory (like adverse meteorological conditions) and structural factors (like the increasing food demand from emerging economies; the growing energy costs; the biofuels demand which creates a pressure on crops production; the reduction in stocks due to policy reforms in developed countries; FAO 2008). Even if their treatment goes beyond the scope of this work, it must be noticed that high food prices stimulated a renewed debate on the appropriateness of market intervention policies, already going on in the so-called CAP “Health Check” discussion in the EU (European Commission COM(207) 722, and COM(2008) 306/4), which should be concluded by the end of 2008 and will set the new rules to regulate the agricultural sector up to 2013. Substantial cutbacks 46 For short periods of time, usually no more than a few months, when world prices were substantially higher than internal prices, export taxes have also been used. 47 The in-quota tariff was set at euro 12/t; the after quota tariff was set at euro 95/t. 63
International Soft Wheat Markets Under Policy Intervention of the intervention system are currently being considered, which the Commission basically propose to function only as a “safety net” and only for soft wheat. Within this debate, an analysis of the effects that EU intervention policies have had on international price transmission is crucial. It is clear that their appropriate assessment requires adequate instruments of analysis. At the same time, dramatic changes have occurred in international commercial policy: the World Bank and FAO estimates that almost 50 countries have put in place emergency measures to confront the rise in food prices 48 . For example, as a reaction to tight world markets and record high prices for cereals, the EU has decided to suspend import duties on cereals 49 for the whole 2007/2008 marketing year (Reg CE 1/2008); to date, it has been decided that the suspension will hold up to the end of the 2008/2009 campaign (June 30, 2009) unless market conditions justify their reintroduction before its end. In turn, large exporters (such as Argentina, Russia, and Ukraine) have imposed taxes on wheat exports, with the same objective of controlling internal prices. The evaluation of the impact of such measures on price transmission makes clear the need of an appropriate theoretical framework for the analysis. However, how much of the rise in agricultural prices is due to short-run factors, or to speculative behaviour, or to a real structural break in their long-run downward trend, as well as which effect this is going to cause on international trade policies (whether a rise in protectionism, or, less likely, an increased liberalization), remain open questions. 4.3 Policy variables and price transmission: a theoretical framework On the basis of the general overview given in paragraph 4.2.2, it is clear that, given that the policy actions have a significant role in the world soft wheat market, policy variables, and policy regimes, will need to be adequately considered while investigating price transmission. Despite the fact that the role played by policy barriers in influencing price transmission is well recognized by the existing literature, as anticipated in chapter 3, in empirical estimates for agricultural commodities this is often not the case, whereas econometric models often make use of policy variables but, in turn, disregarding the time series properties of the data and making sometimes simplistic assumptions (AGMEMOD Partnership 2007a; 2007b). Here, within the theoretical framework for price transmission presented in chapter 2, the explicit introduction of policy variables is proposed. The development of a sound and consistent theoretical framework will then be 48 See http://www.fao.org/giews/english/policy/index.htm for a scheme of the various measures in place. 49 All cereals expect oats, buckwheat and millet. Due to modest harvests in 2007, and low stocks, in 2007/2008 the EU has become a net importer. 64
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TESTING INTERNATIONAL PRICE TRANSMI
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Associazione “Alessandro Bartola
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Index 1 INTRODUCTION ..............
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1 INTRODUCTION The notion of “pri
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Introduction These recent phenomena
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Introduction Whereas the Common Agr
Page 15 and 16: Price Transmission and the Law of O
Page 24 and 25: 3 EMPIRICAL TESTS FOR SPATIAL PRICE
Page 26 and 27: Empirical Tests for Spatial Price A
Page 32 and 33: = β 2 i0 Empirical Tests for Spati
Page 48 and 49: ∆p + t ∑ ⎡β⎤ ' ⎡ p t =
Page 54 and 55: 4 INTERNATIONAL SOFT WHEAT MARKETS
Page 56 and 57: International Soft Wheat Markets Un
Page 58 and 59: 30.000 20.000 10.000 0 1961 1963 19
Page 70 and 71: 250 200 150 100 50 1978:12 Internat
Page 76 and 77: 5 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS: COINTEGRATION
Page 78 and 79: Empirical Analysis: Cointegration M
Page 82 and 83: α LM test ARCH(13) Empirical Analy
Page 96 and 97: 6 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS: COINTEGRATION
Page 110: Empirical Analysis: Cointegration M
Page 113 and 114: Concluding Remarks These models rep
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REFERENCES Alderman, H., 1992. Inte
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References agricultural policies: s
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References Isard, P., 1977. How far
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References Thompson, S. R., Sul, D.
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Annexes 124 Annex A - Empirical ana
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Annexes METHODOLOGY DATA USED MAJOR
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Annexes Variable swfr 138 Annex B -
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Annexes Variable swfr 140 Table B.3
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Annexes 142 Table B.7 - Unit root t
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Annexes 144 Table C.5 - Cointegrati
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Annexes 146 Table D.4 - Unit root t
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Annexes 148 Annex E - Unit root tes
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Annexes Table E.5 - Unit root tests
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The notion of “price transmission
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