Akdeniz Bölgesi ve Başlıca Tüketim Merkezlerinde Yaş Meyve ve Sebze Perakende Fiyatları Arasındaki İlişkiler: Pazar Entegrasyonunun Testi

Spatial price differentials for selected fresh fruits and vegetables, among six cities of Turkey, namely, Adana, Mersin, Antalya, important production centers, and İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir, main consumption centers, were investigated. The relations among retail prices of different cities were analyzed using Vector Auto Regression (VAR) models for each product. The existence or not, and the level of integration -in the affirmative case- among city markets regarding each product were tried to be analyzed using Ravallion’s dynamic analysis method of the market integration. Monthly data used are the retailer price series from 1994 to 2004, obtained from DIE for each of the cities. Retail prices of lemons, lettuce and tomatoes are considered as representative of fresh fruits and vegetables market. Results of the VAR model for lemons market revealed that Adana was the leader market, and that the prices of the other cities were dependent on those of the leader. The highlighted leader position of Adana in this market permitted the dynamic analysis method of market integration suggested by Ravallion to be applied in the lemons market. As the result, long-run market integration with Adana for three out of five local markets was detected. In the lettuce market, on the other hand, the VAR model suggested the retail prices in each city to behave fairly independently from each other. Regarding tomato prices, even though virtual influence of Antalya on other cities was identified examining the impulse response functions (IRF) and the variance decomposition obtained from the VAR model, Adana and Mersin were also observed to have their respective regions of impact. The level of leadership assigned to Antalya in tomatoes market was not highlighted enough for dynamic analysis of integration.