Harvest-Time Protein Shocks and Price Adjustment in U.S. Wheat Markets

Abstract

Dynamic relationships between three classes of wheat are investigated using threshold VAR models incorporating the effects of protein availability. Changes in the stock of protein are found to generate significant impulse responses in the price of hard red spring wheat and hard red winter wheat but not soft red wheat. These impulse responses to identical changes in protein stocks are larger when the absolute deviations of protein stocks from normal levels are large. Shocks to the prices of individual classes of wheat result in complex impulse responses in the prices of the other wheat varieties. Notably, however, a shock to the price of hard red winter weak appears to result in little or no impulse response in the price of hard spring wheat, though, importantly, the opposite is not true.