Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 28,2(December 1996):279-289 O 1996 SouthernAgricultural Economics Association Asymmetric Price Relationships in the U.S. Broiler Industry

This study presents a testing methodology to analyze potential price asymmetries among the farm, wholesale, and retail levels of the U.S. broiler industry. Lag length, direction of causality, and asymmetric relationships are empirically determined. Results suggest that concentration and power of the integrators in the industry have allowed the wholesale price to become the center, causal price in the market. Asymmetric price transmissions, however, are limited. While downward movements in the wholesale price are passed on more fully to growers than increases in the wholesale price, only consumers in the North Central region of the U.S. sharea larger portion of wholesalers ’ price increases thanprice decreases. Key Words: asymmetry, broilers, concentration, Granger causality, price transmission. Price changes between market levels and among spatially separated markets should be symmetric. Considerable attention, however, has been devoted to determining if price trans