Empirical analysis of the distribution and consumption form and transmission of the price of marine products, focusing on tuna

Abstract

　This paper analyzes the fresh bluefin tuna and frozen bigeye tuna markets in Japan using both empirical and field studies. First, the asymmetric price transmission in these two markets was estimated. Then, we conducted a field study to clarify the characteristics and transaction forms in these markets, and also reviewed previous studies in the literature. The empirical study showed the existence of positive and negative asymmetric price transmissions in both the fresh bluefin tuna and frozen bigeye tuna markets, respectively. The field study suggested that the difference in these asymmetric price transmissions, between even two similar goods, may be due to the conditions of transaction patterns and substitutional goods.