No abstract

When trading with homogenous goods, consumers are not able to distinguish between individual goods and thus not willing to pay a higher price, if the same product is available for lower price. This leads to an interesting effect, when prices of homogenous goods in different locations in an open market tend to get closer. It is the result of the so-called Law of One Price. Because of the Law of One Price, producers are affected not only by vertical price transmission, but also horizontally. The aim of this paper is to assess the linkage and patterns among the prices of cow's raw milk in the V4 countries. We apply the price transmission methodology, such as unit root tests, cointegration tests, error correction models, and Granger causality tests. Monthly data for producer prices of raw milk are used, covering the period from January 2005 to June 2017. Our results confirm the existence of the Law of One Price when milk producer prices in different locations are co-integrated.

Price transmission analysis has gained a lot of attention in recent years. As the research in this area evolved, authors came with newer and newer methods and models with the aim to properly quantify the price transmission mechanism. Generally prices can be transmitted horizontally, across different locations, or vertically, along the vertical supply chain. In our paper, we focus on horizontal price transmission analysis. The aim of this paper is to bring a brief overview of methods applied in horizontal price transmission. By applying different methods we try to answer the question, which of the methods would be more appropriate to analyze horizontal price transmission in case of Slovak milk market. We apply the time series analysis, particularly the Engle-Granger methodology, Johansen cointegration test and threshold cointegration. Monthly data for producer prices of raw milk are used, covering the period from January 2005 to June 2017. Our results confirm that the asymmetric threshold cointegration model describes our data better than the other two models. (10)

Abstract:The beta-lactamases with extended spectrum of activity (ESBL) are medically one of the most important group of enzymes. The presented study provides identification and determination of the spectrum of resistance against different and clinically used antimicrobial drugs in the clinical isolates of Escherichia coli. These isolates had their origin in different departments of the University Hospital L. Pasteur in Košice. The second goal was the detection of beta-lactamase production with extendedspectrum effect (ESBL) and testing of AmpC-type cephalosporinases by several phenotypic tests in clinical isolates. We used both the microdilution method and the method with an active agent, respectively. Samples were positively tested for ESBL with the use of the CLSI disk diffusion method. PCRs were performed with a series of primers designed for the detection of Ambler class A, B and C beta-lactamase genes. About 307 strains of E. coli were investigated. The growth of E. coli resistance to selected antibiotics was present in 83.25% of clinical isolates. There were identified 85 positive isolates in the studied group and the prevalence of the ESBL positive strains of E. coli reached 27.78%. An E. coli strain was isolated with mutations in the promoter region of the AmpC chromosomal gene that is associated with overproduction of the relevant enzyme. We describe a complex ESBL epidemiology. The study revealed a high rate of ESBL-producing E. coli isolates. The bla TEM and bla SHV enzymes dominated in ESBL-positive E. coli isolates in the University Hospital L. Pasteur in Košice.

Despite the fact that situation has changed significantly in recent years and the share of milk production in the total agriculture production tends to decline, milk still represents a significant part of the food products in Slovak households. The study presents the important data on dairy sector balances, focuses on prices and income elasticity. Using dataset from the Household Budget Survey of Slovakia, we estimated the price elasticity of demand for skimmed and whole milk. Due to the nature of data, we used the Cragg's double hurdle model for estimation, in the time period from 2006 to 2012. The results show that the demand for whole milk is elastic (1.42) and for skimmed milk is inelastic (0.53). The rise in prices of whole milk causes an increase in the consumption of skimmed milk by 0.30% and higher prices of skimmed milk leads to increasing of demand for whole milk by 0.37%, therefore they are substitutes. The influence of other dairy products such as a dried milk, yoghurt, cheese is mainly either insignificant (whole milk) or very low (skimmed milk). The income factor positively influences the consumption of milk and leads to a small increase in the consumption of skimmed milk what suggest that both type of milk are normal goods.