This book addresses the important issue of food prices across EU Member States. Although recent attention has focused on events in world commodity markets following the spikes in world prices in 2007-2008 and 2011, there has been comparatively little attention addressing food price dynamics at the retail level. This volume addresses the characteristics of retail food price behaviour and the nature and drivers of price transmission across the EU. There are several inter-related features of the research reported here. First, the volume reports the characteristics of retail food inflation across the EU and the extent to which it differs from non-food inflation. Second, given the different experience of food inflation across EU Member States, it details the process of price transmission as shocks from upstream and world markets are passed through the food sector to the retail stage. Third, it addresses how the extent and nature of price transmission is determined by various aspects of competition throughout the domestic food sector and how the nature of vertical contracting between stages can determine the price transmission process. Finally, it outlines the potential of high-frequency, product-specific scanner data to address price dynamics and adjustment issues and how scanner data can also be used to measure food price inflation. The book will be of interest to researchers on price transmission and competition issues in the EU and, given the wider interest on these issues coupled with the novel use of scanner data, to researchers further afield. The contributions will also be of interest to policymakers and stakeholders as they seek to make sense of, and to address, regulation issues as they relate to the food sector.

Since the financial and food price crises of 2007, market instability has been a topic of major concern to agricultural economists and policy professionals. This volume provides an overview of the key issues surrounding food prices volatility, focusing primarily on drivers, long-term implications of volatility and its impacts on food chains and consumers. The book explores which factors and drivers are volatility-increasing and which others are price level-increasing, and whether these two distinctive effects can be identified and measured. It considers the extent to which increasing instability affects agents in the value chain, as well as the actual impacts on the most vulnerable households in the EU and in selected developing countries. It also analyses which policies are more effective to avert and mitigate the effects of instability. Developed from the work of the European-based ULYSSES project, the book synthesises the most recent literature on the topic and presents the views of practitioners, businesses, NGOs and farmers' organizations. It draws policy responses and recommendations for policy makers at both European and on international levels.

This book provides fresh insights into concepts, methods and new research findings on the causes of excessive food price volatility. It also discusses the implications for food security and policy responses to mitigate excessive volatility. The approaches applied by the contributors range from on-the-ground surveys, to panel econometrics and innovative high-frequency time series analysis as well as computational economics methods. It offers policy analysts and decision-makers guidance on dealing with extreme volatility.

"The conference was organized by the three editors of this book and took place on August 15-16, 2012 in Seattle."--Preface.

This book covers the agricultural value chain issues that occur in different parts of the world and aims to increase our understanding about the sustainable agricultural value chain paradigm. By reading through these chapters, the readers will witness various interesting, sometimes sad, commonalities among different regions of the world, where smallholder farmers and producers are severely affected by various agricultural policy deficiencies or mistakes and inexistences. The book consists of 14 chapters, which comprehensively cover over 20 agricultural products from more than 15 different regions of the world. Various qualitative and quantitative research methods are presented including surveys, case studies, interviews, price transmission, risk analysis, and multiagent system technology.

The role of market concentration and potential market power exertion in the agri-food industry is a topic of longstanding interest and concern to policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers. This study provides a comprehensive overview of recent trends in market concentration upstream, midstream, and downstream the agri-food industry at the global, regional, and country level, and assesses how and to what extent concentration could be affecting market conduct and performance of food systems in developed and developing countries. The analysis additionally discusses, to the extent detectable, implications of concentration, including vertical and horizontal integration that favor concentration, for food security and nutrition and environmental sustainability. While market concentration in the agri-food industry has increased across most segments, the evidence on market power exertion is inconclusive. Several knowledge and data gaps are identified and additional research is necessary to derive more general conclusions and policy recommendations.

This book explores the role that institutions and ownership play in the transformation and development of the beer market and brewing industry, and the innovative ways in which breweries have adapted their strategies to respond to external challenges and the restructuring of the industry in recent years.