 The Role of Quality in Wheat Import DecisionmakingStephanie A. Mercier No 308270, Agricultural Economic Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Abstract: The dramatic losses in U.S. wheat market share over the last 10-15 years (a 40- percent decline since 1973) have raised the question of whether additional wheat cleaning would help the competitiveness of U.S. grain. When making decisions about wheat import sources, importers consider factors such as price, wheat quality, trade-servicing reliability, and political relationships. This study focuses on the function of quality in the import decisionmaking process, particularly the cleanliness of wheat. This study finds that wheat quality matters most in markets that do not receive export subsidies or other forms of export assistance, and countries that conduct imports under a state trading system are less likely to be sensitive to quality and more sensitive to price. Offering cleaner wheat to all U.S. wheat export customers would have a net cost of at least $8 million. Delivering a higher quality wheat to select import customers could help maintain market share and even slightly expand share in certain quality-sensitive markets, leading to a net benefit to the U.S. wheat sector of $7-$9 million each year. Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Demand and Price Analysis; International Relations/Trade; Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uerser:308270 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Agricultural Economic Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC. |
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