ISHS Acta Horticulturae 536: XIVth International Symposium on Horticultural Economics
THE VARIABILITY OF AGRO FOOD PRODUCT CONSUMER PRICES |
| Author: | F. Giametta |
| Keywords: | food, price, index, marketing, retail |
| Abstract:
The monitoring of consumer prices is usually carried out by observing the variation of these over time and the average value of given sets of goods. The price index obtained in this way, that is a very important source of information, can be either related to the whole economic system or to smaller territorial realities. The problem dealt with in this paper has a completely different nature: whereas the price index is essentially an average and is only considered as such, the index of price dispersion is intended to measure the extent of price variation not over time, but in well defined territorial areas. The phenomenon of price differentiation has a very important statistical value even if we cannot discount the importance of knowing also its the variations over time. The aim of this study is to detect any differentiation of the consumer prices of agrofood products in a city exemplifying at best the commercial reality of Southern Italy. The survey was conducted on a substantial number of retail outlets representing all the typologies mostly spread in the urban center under study. The selection of the outlets to sample was based on some elements that accounted for the basis of sample stratification and on some other random ones. The study highlighted, the differences in consumer prices of the products examined according to the areas into which the urban center had been subdivided and the size and type of outlets. | |
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