SPATIAL MARKET INTEGRATION IN REGIONAL CATTLE MARKETS

Geographic markets are extremely important to agriculture because agricultural products are bulky and/or perishable and production and consumption areas are separated. This study investigates how mandatory price reporting has influenced the degree of spatial market integration between U.S. regional fed cattle markets. Results indicate the market prices across the regional cattle markets are cointegrated. In addition, the amount of time it took for one market to react to the other market's change in price varied across the three time periods used in this study. This suggests mandatory price reporting has not substantially increased market integration