Price transmission in regional beef markets: Australia, China and Southeast Asia

With increasing trade volumes in the Asian region, it could be expected that beef markets are becoming increasingly integrated. Major beef exporters or importers can be expected to lead others, but others can be separated by obstacles to trade or small trade volumes. This paper examines price transmission between the key regional beef markets of Australia, China, Indonesia and Vietnam. It draws on quarterly price data from 2005 to 2015 and methods including co-integration analysis, granger causality test, and vector error correction model and impulse response function. The results show that log-run equilibrium relationships exist in two of the trading relationships, where the beef price in Indonesia is affected by the Australian market while the beef price in Vietnam is impacted by the Chinese market. However, Australia and China’s beef prices are not impacted by Indonesian or Vietnamese prices. Reasons behind these price inter-relationships are discussed.