Price Transmission in the Spanish Fresh Wild Fish Market

This article presents the results of a price transmission analysis in the fresh wild fish market in Spain. Value chains of hake, anchovy and mackerel, were studied and two alternative methodologies were undertaken, one based in structural models for agricultural markets and the other analyzing cointegration across the prices at the different levels of the value chain. For domestic seafood production, a perfect competitive framework could be rejected, and no price transmission along the chain was found. For imports, price transmission increased due to the power exercised by traders on producers in the origin countries. In species where the supply is dominated by local product, the margin of traders depends on origin prices. However, traders can influence producer prices in international markets, what increase their margins. Consequently, traders are interested in those species where the supply is dominated by imports, which provides more possibilities to increase their margins.