The price effect of expanding fish auction markets

Abstract

a b s t r a c tFish markets can be expanded by two means, first by attracting newcomers in a local trading room and secondly by allowing remote bidders to participate. In both cases, electronic systems have played a key role in French primary fish markets. The computerisation of trading rooms started in the mid 1980s while connection through Intranet or Internet systems first started in the mid-1990s and then has spread more actively in France since 2007. However, the socioeconomic impact (on prices for example) of expanding markets by electronic means is far from being clearly predictable. First based on an econometric analysis, this article presents evidence of increases in price level and variability after the implementation of local electronic auction systems. Secondly, a comprehensive survey of the 40 fish auction markets in France brings additional information about the effects of electronic remote bidding on fish prices. The analysis of these two empirical outcomes uses the cross-fertilization of the positivist auction theory in economics with the constructionist approach of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in sociology to enrich the potential hypotheses lying behind the study of the structural impact of electronic systems on market prices.

Buyer and seller behavior in fish markets organized as Dutch auctions: Evidence from a wholesale fish market in Southern Europe

“…Dutch auctions may not extract the maximum revenue from buyers in some circumstances (see Guillotreau and Jiménez-Toribio, 2011). In asymmetric auctions where private values are not drawn from an identical probability distribution, a Dutch auction system may not select the bidder who has the highest private value, since bidders with higher valuations can bid less aggressively to outbid the competitors.…”

“…Consider, for instance, the wholesale fish markets of Pescara Bucciarelli, 2008, 2011a,b) and Ancona (Gallegati et al, 2011), in Italy; Lorient (Guillotreau and Jiménez-Toribio, 2011) and Sete (Gallegati et al, 2011), in France; the Basque Country (García et al, 2010), in Spain; Sidney's Pyrmont (Hickey, 1989), in Australia; Taipei (Crawford and Kuo, 2003), in the Republic of China; or Iceland (Gallegati et al, 2011). In these markets an auction board is usually available in the warehouse where lots are being auctioned.…”

Currency Invoicing in Norwegian Salmon Export

“…However, the choice of LCP relative to PCP and export volume can also be due to different factors on the import side of the market. For instance, a shift from many small importers to a handful of large retail chains could result in more use of the importer's currency, a development observed in many seafood markets (Murray and Fofana 2002;Guillotreau, Le Grel, and Simioni 2005;Guillotreau and Jiménez-Toribio 2011;Asche et al 2011a,b). The exporter's yearly number of trades to a destination is included to control for trade frequency.…”

“…The market has become global for a number of species Tveterås et al 2012), and growth of large retail chains has led to increased concentration downstream (Murray and Fofana 2002;Guillotreau, Le Grel, and Simioni 2005;Guillotreau and Jiménez-Toribio 2011;Asche et al 2011a,b). The focus of retail chains on efficient logistics has led to increased coordination upstream (Kvaløy and Tveterås 2008;Olson and Criddel 2008) as well as the creation of very large production companies .…”

Cloud-based Auction Tower for Perishable Supply Chain Trading

“…CALM (Computer Aided Livestock Marketing), an electronic auction system, was launched for livestock trading in Australia [6]. An increasing number of fish auction markets in France have set up their remote bidding system to expand markets since 2007 [21]. Despite significant progress achieved by research and practitioner communities, major challenges still exist in applying auctions/ Internet auctions to facilitate efficient PSCT.…”