| This bulletin provides an alternative approach for computing retail-farm price margins. Current published estimates of retail-farm price margins are calculated assuming that food markets are comprised of identical firms producing, in fixed-factor proportions, a homogeneous set of final food products. The approach presented here relaxes these assumptions by relying on an expenditure-based measure, justified by the Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem, that reflects consumer demand for the many different elementary food products associated with a modern food market. This measure allows a direct link between consumer demand for diverse elementary products and food quality and marketing services where increases in retail-farm price margins, for example, can... |
