Geographical Indications and Price Volatility Dynamics of Lamb Prices in Spain

For decades, food quality standards have attracted the interest of governance institutions and regulation authorities, who have responded to the increasing and demanding societal challenges. In addition, the open debate on significant variability and unusually high levels of agrifood prices recorded in 2007 and later in 2011 affect the behavior of the chain actors involved. As an attempt to bring together these wide concerns within a quantitative framework, a comparative analysis of the performance of the price volatility dynamics allowing for asymmetric behavior along the supply chain of a protected geographical indication (PGI)-certified lamb and its corresponding non-PGI counterpart, both located in the same region of Spain, was undertaken using weekly farm-retail prices for the period 2011–2018. The results indicate the existence of significant volatilities and an asymmetric transmission mechanism along the non-PGI-certified lamb supply chain, whereas the PGI-certified supply chain is impacted by volatility effects, yet characterized by symmetric behavior, which may suggest a high degree of relative market efficiency.