The study of price behavior of vegetable markets in Myanmar and Japan

With the basic knowledge of different marketing system in Myanmar and Japan, this study focuses on the empirical test to find out the number of distributed lags the retail price had, from wholesale price for some selected vegetables. Using monthly data for three years (2001-2003), The Almon Distributed Lag Model, introduced by Shirlay Lamon (1965), was applied in order to verify the number of lags in Myanmar and Japan. Following the introduction about the marketing behavior in both countries, the methodological framework, results, and discussions with some concluding remarks were conducted in this paper. The results evidenced that there was a lag from wholesale to retail price in Myanmar for all crops. However, in Japan, there was no lag for very perishable crops like tomato and cabbage, but with a lag for less perishable crops of potato and onion. The lags of price responses for very perishable crops in Myanmar showed the weakness of price formation process due to inefficient marketing system. It has been suggested that the efficiency in Myanmar can be improved by 1) increasing the volume of business; 2) introducing in wholesale markets with effective laws; 3) upgrading modern retailing system; and 4) facilitating the construction of information, infrastructure and transportation systems.