Dynamics of price volatility spillover in the U.S. catfish market

Abstract

Abstract The U.S. catfish aquaculture industry is arguably one of the earliest aquaculture segments in the world to industrialize, and a pioneer in demonstrating the benefits of innovation-driven aquaculture supply chain development over wild-harvested fisheries. However, the industry substantially contracted through the 2003–2013 period. High and volatile feed prices, volatile farm prices, a rapid surge in low-priced imports, and a strict regulatory compliance burden on a maturing industry are thought to be some of the major factors causing this decline. We analyze the price volatility spillovers in the U.S. catfish industry and the related feed/feed ingredient markets. Our empirical model is the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model allowing for cross-market and own-market impacts from shocks and volatilities in prices. Our results indicate bidirectional spillovers among catfish market prices and most of the feed ingredient prices.