Cost Pass-Through in the U.S. Coffee Industry
By Ephraim Leibtag, Alice Nakamura,
Emi Nakamura, and Dawit Zerom
Economic Research Report No. (ERR-38) 28 pp,
March 2007
A rich data set of coffee prices and costs was used to determine to what extent changes in commodity costs affect manufacturer and retail prices. On average, a 10-cent increase in the cost of a pound of green coffee beans in a given quarter results in a 2-cent increase in manufacturer and retail prices in the current quarter. If a cost change persists for several quarters, it will be incorporated into manufacturer prices approximately cent-for-cent with the commodity-cost change. Given the substantial fixed costs and markups involved in coffee manufacturing, this translates into about a 3-percent change in retail prices for a 10-percent change in commodity prices. Coffee manufacturers do not appear to take advantage of manufacturing and production cost variation to raise retail prices; retail prices respond the same to both increases and decreases in costs of coffee beans.
Keywords: Coffee, retail prices, pass-through, manufacturer prices, price-cost relationship, ERS, USDA
In this report ... Chapters are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- Abstract, Contents, and Summary, 171 kb.
- Introduction, 57 kb.
- The Coffee Value Chain, 105 kb.
- Data Description, 58 kb.
- How Important Is the Coffee Bean in Determining Costs?, 67 kb.
- Differences in Prices Across Markets, 60 kb.
- Responding to Costs, 75 kb.
- Asymmetric Cost Adjustment, 69 kb.
- Pricing Strategy Patterns, 185 kb.
- Conclusion, 57 kb.
- References, 60 kb.
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Updated date: March 13, 2007
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