Vertical and spatial price transmission in the Mexican and international milk market

During the last two decades, the Mexican dairy sector experienced important structural changes, especially after the implementation of the NAFTA agreement. In 2016, the Bank of Mexico observed that in milk market, the final prices tend to rise when input prices increase, however; they do not decrease when input prices decrease. In this context, this study examines the degree of spatial and vertical price transmission between farm milk prices and international milk prices as well as between farm milk prices and retail milk prices, in order to assess the efficiency level of the Mexican and international dairy market. The findings of this research provide contributions to decision makers and industry stake-holders: a unidirectional transmission of international milk prices to domestic milk prices and from farm price to retail price along with the existence of asymmetric price transmission which depends on whether milk prices are increasing or decreasing. The results have shown that a long-run single co-integration relationship exists between international and farmer's prices and between retail and farm price; that the direction of price transmission tends to go from producers to retailers and from international to farmer price and that when international price increase the speed of adjustment tend to be significantly slower, and that when international price decrease, the speed of adjustment tend to be significantly faster.