Evaluating the effectiveness of inter-regional trade and storage in Malawi’s private sector maize markets

Robert Myers ()

Food Policy, 2013, vol. 41, issue C, 75-84

Abstract: This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the private sector maize marketing system in Malawi using threshold autoregression models. Two dimensions of maize market performance are evaluated: (1) inter-regional trade and spatial price transmission; and (2) storage and seasonal price relationships. In both cases, threshold autoregression models which account for nonlinearities predicted by economic theory are applied. Results indicate that spatial price transmission and seasonal price patterns in private sector maize markets in Malawi are generally consistent with long-run competitive inter-regional trade and storage behavior, and that in most cases shocks to long-run equilibrium are arbitraged away quickly. This suggests the private sector in Malawi is generally doing a good job of transporting maize from surplus to deficit regions and smoothing maize consumption between harvests.

Keywords: Inter-regional trade; Malawi maize; Market efficiency; Storage; Threshold autoregression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919213000468
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:41:y:2013:i:c:p:75-84

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.04.007

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().