Zambia ranks as one of the lowest cost producers of sugar. However, Zambia’s domestic sugar price has been high and volatile and is substantially higher than the world price. This has raised concern among stakeholders and further raises questions about the efficient functioning of the market. The study sought to determine and explain efficiency and integration in Zambia’s sugar value chain by analysing price spreads, price formation, and price transmission through a price transmission and partial equilibrium model. The study hypothesised that the Zambian sugar market is both inefficient and it is not integrated with the world market. This was tested through the price transmission and partial equilibrium models. Price transmission is conceptually premised on the Law of One Price (LOP) which postulates that in a frictionless undistorted market, the difference between markets spatially separated should only be explained by transaction costs. To test the hypothesis long-run equilibrium between prices was tested through a series of cointegration tests and an Error Correction model (ECM) was built for cointegrating price series. Model simulations were run and tests for asymmetry for cointegrating price series were conducted. A partial equilibrium framework was developed to determine price formation for Zambia’s sugar market from a number of behavioural equations. The study establishes cointegration in the spatial price transmission (between world sugar prices and Zambia’s wholesale prices) and vertically (between the domestic wholesale prices and sugarcane prices). The ECM for the spatial price transmission reveals low integration and efficiency evidenced by the low speed of adjustment, the Error Correction Term (ECT) of -0.09 and the model simulation, which shows that it takes approximately 3 years for the markets to revert to long run equilibrium after experiencing a price shock. The study also establishes that the spatial price adjustment is asymmetric. The vertical price transmission analysis reveals that it is relatively more integrated and efficient as it has a higher speed of adjustment (ECT of 0.199) which is twice that of the spatial price transmission. The model simulation reveals that it takes about 1 year and 6 months to revert to long run equilibrium after experiencing a shock. The vertical price adjustment is also found to be symmetric. A negative short-run elasticity of -0.29 is found for the spatial price transmission while the long-run transmission is found to be inelastic (0.91 ) which is close to unitary elasticity. The short-run vertical transmission is found to be very inelastic (0.009 ) while the long-run transmission of 0.94 is similar to the spatial transmission (inelastic but close to unitary). Farm to Retail Price Spreads are found to be widening with growing volatility owing to the volatile nature of the Retail Value. While the Farm Value has been increasing, recent spikes experienced in the Retail Value have resulted in an overall widening of the Farm to Retail Price Spread. The partial equilibrium analysis indicates that the price formation in Zambia’s sugar market is determined by the world price through the export parity price, domestic demand, supply conditions as well as policy. The elasticity between Zambia’s sugar price and the export parity price is found to be unitary (1.09). The price space analysis reveals that although Zambia’s domestic price is correlated with the export parity prices it is trending closer to the import parity price. This suggests that there are distortions in the sugar market, which may include high transaction costs, high concentration in the market structure as well as inappropriate policies such as high taxation, high interest rates and a policy requiring fortification of all sugar with Vitamin A, which are driving the domestic price upwards to exceed the export parity price. The sugar baseline for Zambia is generated for 2012 to 2015 based on a number of assumptions in the exogenous variables. Sugar production domestic use and exports are on the rise while the domestic price rises in 2011, falling between 2013 and 2014 then rising in 2014 to 2015. Model simulation of the removal and/or modification of the policy requiring sugar fortification reveals that there is an increase in the flow of imports to about 25,000 tons per year. This results in a 3.2 per cent loss in production and a 6.1 per cent gain in exports while the domestic sugar price falls by 23.9 US Cents/kg (18.8 per cent). Thus Zambia gains in terms of increased consumer welfare and producer welfare because production losses are offset by revenue gains through exports since the world price also increases. The study recommends that transaction costs which include transportation costs, energy, taxation which are pushing the domestic price upwards need to be lowered. The study emphasises the need to promote investments in the sugar industry especially for smaller emerging sugar mills by lowering interest rates and taxes as well as a need to strengthen competition laws governing the industry which will protect consumers,would-be- investors and cane producers from uncompetitive pricing. It further recomments the lifting and /or modification of the barrier on imports of unfortified sugar but stresses that government can allow raw sugar imports which can be fortified in Zambia. A more open and undistorted sugar market in Zambia will result in a competitive, efficient and integrated market governed by market dynamics. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

The market for natural gas in the United States follows a yearly price pattern of high prices during the winter heating season and lows during the summer months. During the winter heating season the daily and weekly price fluctuations for natural gas are normally related to ambient air temperature and other weather related phenomenon. This paper examines a natural gas price forecasting model developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency (EIA). This paper proposes that a more accurate forecasting model can be created from the EIA model by focusing on forecasting price during only the winter heating season and by adding other variables to the EIA model. The forecasting results of the core EIA model are compared to the results of other linear regression models. / Master of Arts

Published Article / The question often arises as to how aware consumers are of prices of products and how much they are willing to pay for particular products. Research indicates that 'excellent value for money' is rated as the number one priority by consumers. In economically challenging conditions, tourists have become more price sensitive and prices charged will influence their decision-making. South Africa, as a destination, must ensure that prices charged for tourism products meet tourists' expectations and therefore research on the price perceptions in relation to major products that international tourists spend money on whilst on holiday, becomes important. As point of departure, it should be possible to establish the difference, if any, between what the tourists expected to pay for specific tourism products, and what they actually paid.

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Economics

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År 1855 klassificerades slotten i vindistriktet runt Bordeaux. Denna klassificering fick stort genomslag och används än idag. Klassificeringen har emellertid kritiserats för att ej representera den faktiska kvaliteten av dess innefattande viner. Trots det används den som ett facit över vinernas storhet. Detta arbete har undersökt samband mellan klassificeringen och vinernas kvalitet idag. Resultatet av litteraturstudien fann samband mellan bordeaux, pris och marknadsföring. Vidare redogörs för att begreppet kvalitet är svårdefinierat då flertalet aktörer tolkar kvalitet på skilda sätt. Influensen av terroir är ej utan vinmakaren en relevant faktor för de sensoriska egenskaperna i vinet. Faktisk kvalitet är mindre betydelsefullt än förväntad kvalitet ur ett marknadsperspektiv. Arbetet diskuterar kvalitetens förankring och vikt i klassificeringen från 1855. Marknadsföring är en stark variabel vid prissättning av viner från Bordeaux i vilken förväntad kvalitet vägde tyngst för priset. Vinkritiker är inflytelserika i en vinproducents förväntade kvalitet. Diskussionen behandlar även olika ståndpunkter i användande av begreppet terroir. De innefattande vinernas faktiska kvalitet var av mindre vikt när klassificeringen genomfördes. Rankningen har idag lett till en generellt högre kvalitet bland vinerna. Klassificeringen har även skänkt status åt regionen och dess viner. / B-uppsatser

This study endeavors to give an insight into the causes and characteristics of price fluctuations of spot cotton at New York, N.Y., for the period 1911-1953, and to indicate whenever possible the factors which caused the price of cotton to rise or fall during selected periods.

Master of Science / Department of Animal Sciences and Industry / Michael D. MacNeil / Jennifer M. Bormann / Genetic and phenotypic data are often provided to bull buyers at time of sale to aid producers in establishing economic value (pricing) of candidates for selection. This study evaluates the association between the information provided to bull buyers at time of sale and prices paid for bulls sold by two large seedstock operations located in Kansas (KS Ranch) and Colorado (CO Ranch). Data were gathered from 15 sale catalogs that documented bulls sold at auctions taking place from 2009 to 2013. In total, there were 39 potential predictor variables recorded for 2,601 Angus bulls for the KS Ranch; while 14 plausible predictor variables were recorded for 504 purebred and 1,399 Stabilizer bulls at the CO Ranch. Due to extensive multicollinearity between predictors, principal component (PC) analyses were conducted on the standardized predictors to reduce dimensionality within each ranch and genetic group. Eleven PC were considered to provide important meaningful information in summarizing the 39 predictors originally available to buyers at the KS Ranch. For both the purebred and Stabilizer bulls from each set of breed type data in the CO ranch, 6 principal components had eigenvalues greater than 1.0. Similar to the findings for the KS Ranch, these PCs also explained approximately 75% of the cumulative variability of the predictors. Sale prices were then regressed on the corresponding PC using a stepwise selection to identify the PC subset that most significantly explained the behavior of bull sale prices (P < 0.05). The final models explained approximately 63%, 37% and 58% of the variation in sale prices received for Angus, purebred and Stabilizer bulls, respectively. Interpretation of the eigenvectors for the PC having the greatest eigenvalues led to the conclusion that buyers put the most weight on growth traits followed by carcass characteristics and economic selection indices. However, no distinction of a specific variable’s numerical impact on price was determined.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Maxwell / Historically underpriced, tickets for shows and sports games are frequently purchased just for the intent of resale at a higher value. This action has helped facilitate the creation of a large online secondary market for event tickets. Trying to capture the excess demand left by primary sellers, online ticket brokers often drastically inflate prices from face value. Using data from Ace Ticket from the second half of the 2011 NFL season, this thesis examines what factors drive ticket price movement. By splitting the effects into a team strength component and a days until the contest component, this study finds two major factors correlated with changes in ticket prices. The results show that, while playoff chances are the best proxy for team strength, the days until the game element (in particular the last week before a contest) has the most significant effect on prices. Often dropping prices by over 50 percent, ticket brokers scramble to make a sale during the last week. Although individual NFL teams can aggressively price their tickets to capture more revenue immediately from the primary market, this analysis shows that they may not be able to compete with ticket brokers who can adjust prices daily without the fear of alienating fans / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.