A STUDY OF CEREAL PRICE INTERRELATIONSHIPS ACROSS MARKETS AND COMMODITIES AT THE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL LEVELS IN MALI

Beginning in 1981, the government of Mali undertook several policy reforms to allow participation of private traders in cereal marketing, which up to that date was officially controlled by a parastatal. These reforms can be expected to have an impact on the working of the cereals market. One of the main objectives of this study is to assess the performance of the cereal marketing system. The task is to study how different markets are interrelated in terms of price formation, by using wholesale and retail price data and different techniques of analysis. These methods of analysis include bivariate correlations, calculation of margins, and multiple regression techniques. Not only is the research aimed at showing the differences and similarities of the different methods of analysis, but also at showing the strength and weaknesses of different data sets on cereal prices in Mali. Another objective of this paper is to study the price interrelationships across commodities in order to determine the degree of substitutability between the cereals involved.