European Union Agri-Food Prices During COVID-19 and their Seleceted Determinants

Abstract The pandemic caused by the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has widespread socio-economic consequences worldwide. The implications of the COVID-19 crisis also include changes in production, consumption, trade, and agri-food commodity prices. This paper focuses on the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis on producer and retail prices of agri-food commodities in European Union (EU) countries. The study is based on monthly producer and consumer food price indices in EU countries. In estimating the impact of COVID-19 on prices, actual price changes were compared with counterfactual figures derived from ex-post forecasts calculated according to regARIMA models. The study of the causes of price changes was based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the quantitative approach, the impact of the strength of applied restrictions and the trade position of countries on the deviation of actual prices from the forecasts was examined. For this purpose, regression models based on cross-sectional data were applied. The results show that there is a quite significant variation in the dynamics of changes in agri-food commodity prices both among countries and across the marketing chain. A negative and statistically significant relationship has been found between country food self-sufficiency in the pre-COVID-19 period and changes in producer prices during the first phase of the COVID-19 crisis. In turn, the strength of stay-at-home restrictions was significant for retail price formation during the COVID-19 crisis. The general conclusion is that the responses of agri-food prices during the pandemic vary both spatially and over time.