Study On Fluctuation Characteristics And Conduction Mechanism Of Vegetable Prices In China

Vegetables,as the main income source of farmers,play an important part in the living expenses of both urban and rural residents.The stability of vegetable price is not only related to the safety of agricultural production,the stability of farmers' income,the daily life of residents.It also is of great significance for the stable development of the whole national economy.In recent years,China's vegetable price fluctuates frequently.Its high price and difficult selling situations are also strange social phenomena,which have quickly become the focus of media,society and government.The increase of vegetable price and fluctuation make it necessary to probe into the reasons behind it.Therefore,on the basis of the previous studies,this paper analyzes the basic rules of vegetable price fluctuation,the influencing factors,its characteristics and causes of asymmetric transmission from both the theoretical and empirical point of view.For the analysis of the fluctuation characteristics of vegetable price,the paper starts with the analysis of the seasonal fluctuation characteristics of vegetable price,then the paper divides the data from each season into growth trend and fluctuation factors by using HP filter method.After that,the paper investigates the characteristics of price increase and volatility respectively.For better analysis,this paper chooses the agricultural production price as the comparison index of the vegetable production price,and the retail price of food as the comparison index of the vegetable retail price.The findings are as follows.First,there is no major difference for the quarterly growth rate of vegetable prices,with the fastest growth in the fourth quarter,and the slowest growth in the second quarter.However,the difference in the quarterly fluctuation is more obvious,with the first quarter being the largest one.Additionally,vegetable production price fluctuates frequently,but there is no significant difference with the volatility of the comparison indicators.The growth rate of production price is slightly higher than the comparative indicators.Third,the retail price of vegetables,compared with the retail price of food,the growth rate,frequency and amplitude of the former are significantly higher than that of the latter.Fourth,vegetable production price and retail price have the same fluctuations cycle,but the amplitude and growth rate of the latter are significantly greater than the former,and the gap between the two shows a tendency to continue to widen.Fifth,the rise in production price does not bring a simultaneous increase in profits.Therefore,the rapid rise in vegetable costs,yet with unreasonable rise in production price,has affected the reasonable income of farmers.The rapid growth of retail price and volatility have had a negative impact on the daily consumption of the population.In the part of analyzing the influence factors of vegetable price fluctuation,this paper first analyzes the factors which influence the vegetables price,such as supply and demand,cost,circulation,information,weather as well as government regulations.Then,using inter-provincial panel data,the effects of quantifiable factors on vegetable production price and retail price are verified.Findings are as follows.First,the increase in costs and excessive circulation are the key factors driving the rapid rise in price.Production costs push vegetable production price higher,while production costs,distribution costs and operating costs contribute to higher retail price.Intermediate links further push up the retail price of vegetable terminals,which has widened the gap between production price and sales price.Second,the contradiction between supply and demand is one of the main causes of vegetable price volatility.“Excess” and “insufficient”,“sell difficult” and “buy hard” coexisting contradiction resulting in the price difference between vegetable production and marketing are too large and there are large fluctuations in vegetable price.Thirdly,the existence of a series of factors such as natural disaster,information asymmetry,government regulation and control policy exacerbated the short-term fluctuation of vegetable price.In the fifth and the sixth part of the paper,the author analyzes the problems of the big differences between the production,sales price and the fluctuation of retail price from the perspective of asymmetric transmission of price.In the vertical price transmission,the asymmetric conduction of price can be divided into two categories: the asymmetry between forward and backward conduction,and the asymmetric reaction of the price to the positive and negative shock.To enable the analysis to cover the main pathway of price transmission,this paper makes a detailed analysis of the asymmetry between the price of production and retail,and the price of production,wholesale and retail,using the national and typical vegetable data.The following conclusions are obtained.First of all,the vegetable price in the industrial chain along the "forward" and "reverse" conduction process,the strength,efficiency and speed of forward conduction are significantly stronger than those of the reverse conduction;Secondly,The results the forecast-error Variance Decompositions shows that the fluctuation of production price is the main cause of the fluctuation of the overall vegetable price.The production price has a decisive effect on the variance of production price,wholesale price and retail price forecast error.Thirdly,in the process of vegetable price forward transfer,the downstream price has a more sensitive co-directional response to the positive impact from the upstream price.When the downstream price deviates from the equilibrium,there is asymmetry of upward adjustment faster than downward adjustment.In the process of reverse conduction,neither the reaction of the upstream price to the shock of the downstream price,nor the adjustment speed of the upstream price to the equilibrium price have obvious asymmetric characteristics;Fourth,a series of asymmetric characteristics of the price transmission are the in-depth reason why the growth rate of retail price and volatility are much faster than retail price.The asymmetry of vegetable price forward and backward conduction amplifies the upstream price fluctuation and transmits it to the downstream price,which causes the downstream price to show a greater fluctuation range;the sensitive response of downstream price to "positive" impact of upstream price is the deep reason for widening the price gap between production and marketing.The inequality of market position,the existence of adjustment costs,the small elasticity of demand for vegetables,information asymmetry and some other factors,are the root causes of vegetable price conduction asymmetry.Based on the above analysis,in order to solve the problem of vegetable price,the article finally puts forward countermeasures to improve the farmers' market position,the vegetable market system and supporting services.Suggestions include strengthening the organization of farmers,increasing investment and construction of the wholesale and retail market,strengthening the construction of cold chain system of vegetables,building a sound information platform,development of production and marketing docking mode,reducing circulation,and improving the price support system.