The Behaviour of Salmon Price Volatility

Abstract

Salmon prices exhibit substantial volatility. An understanding of the structure of volatility is of great interest since this is a major contributor to economic risk in the salmon industry. The volatility process in salmon prices was analysed based on weekly price data from 1995 to 2007. The Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model was used to test for volatility clustering and persistence of volatility for prices. We find evidence for and discuss the degree of persistence and reversion in salmon price volatility. Further, we find increased volatility in periods of high prices. For the industry this means that larger expected profits more often than not come at a tradeoff of greater price risk.