Price Linkage and Transmission between Shippers and Retailers in the French Fresh Vegetable Channel

The existence and the kind of asymmetry that characterize the relationships between shipping-point and retail prices are investigated for two major French fresh vegetables: tomatoes and chicory. Weekly data allow considering these relationships at very detailed levels such as region or supermarket chain. Moreover, the methodology proposes an implicit treatment of asymmetries in price transmission by using recently developed threshold cointegration methods. Our results do not give evidence to the widespread assertion that shipping-point price increases are completely and rapidly passed by middlemen on to consumers while there is a slower and less complete transmission of shipping-point price declines. As already emphasized in the literature, these results may be linked to the perishable nature of the two considered fresh vegetables.Agribusiness, L66, L81, Q13,