Information on sellers and buyers characteristics: added value to explain price formation at primary fish markets in managed French scallop fisheries

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to explore, through a hedonic approach, the factors that might explain the price variability for the French-managed fishery of scallop at primary fish markets. In addition to factors classically identified in the current literature like intrinsic product characteristics or markets situation, the characteristics of operators are tested. The relationships of loyalty between sellers and buyers, and market assiduity are notably considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Buyer and seller characteristics
• fisheries management
• hedonic price
• market behaviour
• market structure
• scallop

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q21
• Q22
• Q28
• C10
• L11

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The other French fishing grounds located in the Bay of Biscay represent less than 4% of the French production figure and are not considered in this study.

² The number of buyers in the management area 3 is relatively large compared to other management areas due to the obligation for fishers to sell their entire production at auction hall. Fishers have to buy their own production if they want to sell it themselves.

³ According to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1077/2008 of 3 November 2008 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1966/2006 on electronic recording and reporting of fishing activities and on means of remote sensing and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1566/2007.

⁴ A previous study (Foucher et al. 2015) showed that there is as many markets as management areas. This explains why we perform a model for each management area. The potential interdependence of markets, however, taken into account through the variable ‘national daily supply’. A consequence of the existence of eight markets is that explanatory variables of price are not the same for all models.

⁵ Detailed results can be found in Appendix B.

⁶ The product quality here refers to the appreciation criteria as defined by European regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 2406/96 of 26 November 1996 laying down common marketing standards for certain fishery products).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been financially supported by the ANR-COMANCHE 2010 STRA-010 project funded by the French National Agency for Research.