The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of market power in the marketing chain of the broiler chicken, egg, and beef industries in Canada. The principal method of analysis tested for the existence of asymmetry. Supplementary testing included estimates of markup equations, means and coefficients of variation, elasticities of demand and price transmission, and correlation coefficients. / The findings give retailers market power in Montreal and Toronto for chicken, and in Toronto, Edmonton, and Winnipeg for beef. Vancouver retail prices for chicken and eggs were statistically independent of prices at the other levels. Processors dominated producers in the chicken markets of Montreal and Toronto, and the Winnipeg beef market. Producers showed possible dominance in the Montreal egg market. / Symmetry occurred most often in the beef and egg markets; which share the character of flat or declining consumer demand conditions. The ability to exercise market power may be determined by strong demand coupled with institutional price-responsiveness.

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The closure of the US border to Canadian live cattle and beef products after the confirmation of a single Canadian BSE case in May, 2003 seriously jeopardized the Canadian beef cattle industry, which had relied heavily on exports. The inventory of cattle rapidly increased and farmers were paid record low prices for live cattle. But at the same time, the cattle slaughtering industry experienced a substantial increase in profits. The enlarged price spread between the value of live cattle and beef steak raised concerns about oligopsony market power in the live cattle market. This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the Canadian slaughtering industry exercised this market power in the months following the discovery of BSE. Two models, the conjectural variation model from the New Empirical Industrial Organization and an asymmetric price transmission model were used and the results from both models do not support the hypothesis of oligopsony market power.