Competition, Bargaining Power, and the Cattle Cycle

John Crespi, Tian Xia and Rodney D. Jones

No 6263, 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: Cattle production follows a dynamic cycle that has often been analyzed, and cattle markets receive much scrutiny because of the potential for buyer market power. The relationship between the two has been little studied, however. This paper provides a simple conceptual framework to study how the cattle cycle and market concentration jointly affect the bargaining power of producers and packers yielding the following main results. Not surprisingly, a larger cattle stock reduces producers' bargaining position, which results in a lower fed cattle price. More importantly, however, the cattle stock's negative effect on price is magnified by the market concentration in beef packing. Thus, the cycle itself is very importantly related to a posited cycle of bargaining power between cattle producers and beef packers. Secondly, the model also shows how beef packers may use the special feature of cattle as both consumption and capital goods to lower the cattle price by influencing cattle inventories.

Keywords: Livestock; Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-mac
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea08:6263

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.6263

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