D. Pick et al., QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF UNITED-STATES WHEAT PERFORMANCE FOR QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS, Canadian journal of agricultural economics, 42(3), 1994, pp. 273-290
Quality of U.S. grain exports has been a contentious issue over the pa
st decade. Nowhere is the issue more hotly debated than for wheat. At
the core of the debate has been the ability of Canada to command a pre
mium for its wheat in foreign markets. Buyers' perceptions of quality
have been suggested as an explanation, but empirical evidence on the q
uality attributes responsible for this country-of-origin premium has b
een limited to hedonic pricing studies. This paper quantifies purchase
rs' perceptions of the relative importance of quality characteristics
for the world's major importing countries. This is done by calculating
three indices. The attainment index measures how well buyers' percept
ions of the importance of the characteristic matches buyers' perceptio
ns of how well it is being supplied. The supply index measures buyers'
perceptions on how well a characteristic is being supplied. The deman
d index measures how important the buyers perceive a particular charac
teristic to be. Then buyers' perceptions of the performance of U.S. an
d Canadian wheats are evaluated, given the perceived importance of eac
h characteristic, and related to previous empirical results. Finally,
these results are compared for alternative groupings of importing coun
tries.