Since November of 2002, the Food Marketing Policy Center has periodically conducted price surveys of milk in New York and Southern New England (Cotterill, et. al. 2002; Rabinowitz, et. al. 2003;Cotterill 2003). Results of these surveys, when coupled with data on the underlying cost of the raw milk, have...

Last November, the Food Marketing Policy Center conducted a survey of retail milk prices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and parts of southeast New York (Cotterill, et al., 2002). That look at the price distribution over space aided in answering several questions regarding milk...

At the outset we would like to thank the Committee on the Environment for the opportunities to submit this written testimony and to address the Committee on an important issue today. Milk pricing in New England and Massachusetts has been contentious for several years because of two interrelated...

The proposed Connecticut milk pricing law for milk establishes two price collars. The general concept is as follows. Wholesale fluid milk prices will be limited to no more than 140% of the raw fluid price, and retail prices will be limited to no more than 140% of the wholesale price. These 140%...

This paper explains how one can implement two alternative policies that provide a partial redress to noncompetitive milk pricing that is currently hurting consumers and farmers. First, we explain the 40-40 Consumer Approach. Then, we present the Farmer and Consumer Fair Share Approach. The first...

Formulating theoretical models inevitably requires various simplifications that assist in making analysis tractable and that facilitate deriving closed form solutions. While the strategic insights gained from theoretical models of market phenomena are often quite valuable, testing the...

Thank you for inviting me to speak to your conference. Given that the standard definition of an expert is someone who is more than a hundred miles from home I qualify as an expert on the western Canadian dairy industry. The conference organizing committee gave me as a working title, “Who...

This briefing paper presents some facts that pertain to the overall performance of the milk-marketing channel in New England. It updates information provided in earlier papers that focused upon dairy pricing during and immediately prior to the Compact era. (Cotterill, 2001a, b, Cotterill and...

Price gouging is commonly perceived to be a consumer issue, however it also is a farmer issue. Currently, retail fluid milk prices in New England are as much as a dollar per gallon above supply costs (Cotterill et al. 2002; Mohl 2002). Yes, consumers are paying too much; but farmers are also...

With the help of four University of Connecticut graduate students, two weeks ago I surveyed milk prices in 195 grocery stores in southern New England and neighboring parts of New York. The average price for milk in Providence supermarkets was $3.03 a gallon (the average prices for the major...