Estimation of Inter-regional Maize Market Integration in Tanzania and Its Determinants

摘要

Food markets in Tanzania, like in other develop-ing economies, are suspected of segmentation due to inadequate infrastructure and various other rea-sons. This paper attempts to empirically test the de-gree of market integration in inter-regional tradefor maize, the country's staple food. Two trading markets are assumed to be integrated if price change in one leads to identical price response in the other. Monke and Petzel (1984) define integrated markets as markets in which prices of differentiatedproducts do not behave independently. Identical products can be differentiated by location, and statistical tests of independence are employed to indicate the degree of integration (Merle and Benson, 1990). Associated with market integration is the degree of price transmission which may have an effect on the speed of traders' response to move food to deficit areas, especially during emergencies such as drought, floods or pestilence, before the affected people suffer from hunger.