Analysis of Price Efficiency in Market Levels of Cherry Cultivars (A Case Study of Urmia County)

As one of the top three cherry producing countries in the world, Iran has decisive role in price formation process of this product in the world market. Since how price transmission of agricultural products and their changes are considered as one of the most important indicators for measuring the performance of market and allocation of resources in the economy, The present study investigates the Price transmission of cherry product at wholesale-retail levels in Iran.In this study, considering the high potential of Urmia county in the field of production and export of this product, the price transmission between Takdaneh-Khoshei cherry varieties of this county also has been investigated. And similar to wholesale-retail levels of cherries, in order to achieve the desired results, the error correction model with Engel-Granger approach and Shazam software package was used. The results showed that in the wholesale-retail levels of cherries in the country, the price transmission has been asymmetric both in short and long term. Therefore, it is suggested that policies based on market regulation should not be planned at the same time during periods of price increase and decrease. In other words, in price increase and decrease, the choice of the effectiveness of policy tools should be based on paying attention to this asymmetry in the long term. In the case of cherry price transfer at the levels of Khoshei-Takdaneh varieties, in the short term the price transmission has been asymmetric but in the long term the price transmission has been symmetric. In other words, the downward price adjustments from Khoshei to Takdaneh cherries are transferred faster than its upward adjustments. Based on this, it can be concluded and proposed that the price adjustment of the Khoshei market can ultimately produce the same results in the Takdaneh market. Therefore, there will be no need for different policies to regulate prices in Takdaneh-Khoshei cherry markets.