A Model of Inter-Regional Trade in Grains with Storage

Prabhat Vaze

Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series from Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh

Abstract: When there is spatial arbitrage between food markets, the price differential between the markets should equal the cost of transfer. This simple arbitrage rule has formed the basis of many empirical tests of the performance of developing countries' food markets. Here, a more complex structure to regional food markets is hypothesised. By including commodity storage into a model of inter-regional trade, it is shown that, in an optimal dynamic program, trade is intermittent. The possibility of periods without trade casts doubt on the validity of using tests for correlation in market prices as indicators of market performance.

Keywords: food markets; optimal control; storage; spatial equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.ed.ac.uk/papers/id10_esedps.pdf

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:edn:esedps:10

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series from Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh 31 Buccleuch Place, EH8 9JT, Edinburgh. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Research Office ().