QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF UNITED-STATES WHEAT PERFORMANCE FOR QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS

Citation
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
Citations number
13
Categorie Soggetti
Economics,"AgricultureEconomics & Policy
ISSN journal
00083976
Volume
42
Issue
3
Year of publication
1994
Pages
273 - 290
Database
ISI
SICI code
0008-3976(1994)42:3<273:QAOUWP>2.0.ZU;2-Y
Abstract
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.