ESTIMATING THE FACTORS AFFECTING US POULTRY EXPORTS

The United States is the world’s largest poultry producer and exports about 18 percent of its total poultry production. It is also second largest exporter of broiler meats. Reports from the USDA predict that global import demand for poultry is expected to increase over the next 10 years, with the US accounting for 34% of the global poultry exports. The present study estimates the effects of exchange rate and US poultry export price on the quantity of poultry imports by the top five trading countries, namely Mexico, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Russia, during the period 1993 to 2012, using a double-log multiple regression model. Comparison of the effects across the countries was made possible with the incorporation of dummy variables for each country with Hong Kong serving as the baseline. The results demonstrated that the effect of exchange rate and poultry price, and per capita GDP on the quantity of poultry imported by Russia , Canada, and China is statistically different from Hong Kong and the rest of the countries in this study. Exchange rate appears to have a negative and statistically significant effect on US quantity of poultry exports. Export price and per capital GDP shows a positive and statistically significant impact on US poultry exports, although the result differs for individual countries. Overall, this study suggests that the effect of exchange rate and export price on the quantity of US poultry exports varies across countries. Key Words: Exchange rate, Double-log regression, US poultry price, Poultry export