The impact of regulation in shelf life on milk price

The scope of this paper is to investigate the impact of market deregulation on the level of farm-gate prices and the competitiveness of raw milk producers in Greece along the suggested lines of OECD. For this purpose, we use a dynamic panel data approach. We argue that the full openness of the relevant milk market segment had significant implications for the level of farmgate prices in the industry. On the one hand, market deregulation causes the increase of farmgate prices and, on the other hand, a fiercer market competition proxied by the increase in the number of firms in the industry results in a decrease in farmgate milk prices. Lastly, our empirical findings remain robust under different methodologies and sample splitting, providing a focal point to policymakers and government officials for the ex-post evaluation of the proposed OECD deregulation strategies.