On Policy Interventions and Vertical Price Transmission: the Italian Milk Supply Chain Case

During the last two decades, the EU dairy sector has been interested by considerable changes and two policy reforms, the Fischler Reform and the Common Market Organization Reform, pushing toward economic liberalization. These changes affected the EU supply chains at different levels, altering the mechanisms of vertical price transmission. Against this background, we apply error correction models to assess how price signals are passed through, before and after the Italian milk supply chain reforms. In particular, we study the degree of price transmission asymmetries and conclude that market sluggishness has increased in the post-reform period, but the asymmetric dynamics are less evident. Reflections on future research needs are discussed.