Asymmetric Price Transmission in the U.S. Beef Market: New Evidence from New Data

We examine price transmissions among farm, wholesale and retail U.S. beef markets using two types of retail level price data, one collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the other one collected at the point of sale using electronic scanners. Although some evidence suggests that BLS prices are bias (do not account for volume sales and discounted prices), we find no evidence of asymmetric price transmissions in the response of retail prices to changes in upstream prices. Our findings have important implications for the U.S. beef market efficiency. Since retailer price adjustments to farm and wholesale price changes are symmetric, the U.S. beef market is not as inefficient as found in previous studies