Price transmission in the milk sectors of Poland and Hungary

Abstract

Rapid and thorough changes have recently taken place in the dairy supply chain in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. Growing concerns have been expressed that these changes may negatively affect farmers' relative position vis-a-vis the downstream industry, owing to market power exercised by the latter. This article investigates the price transmission mechanism in two countries from the region, Poland and Hungary, and contrasts the results with dairy market organisations specific to these countries. Using cointegrated vector autoregression and controlling for potential structural breaks, it is shown that Polish milk prices, unlike Hungarian ones, are characterised by short-term and long-term asymmetries. We discuss a number of potential explanations for these results, and consider, among others, differences between the dairy chain structures and the role of FDI.