Abstract
We construct a model to identify determinants of the diffusion rate of quality standards in a food chain. We argue that adoption decisions in the food chain are determined by farmers’ and processors’ economic considerations. Factors such as pricing behaviour, compliance costs and market structure are identified and discussed in the paper. The findings are used to test an econometric model utilizing data on Polish milk processing firms gathered between 2000 and 2002. The results indicate that input and output prices have a significant influence on the diffusion rate of standards; the dominance of large-scale holdings in the relevant procurement market significantly increases diffusion as well. Compared to their competitors, small cooperatives were found to face more significant problems in procuring high quality raw materials.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. We would also like to express our gratitude to Aurelijus Dabusinskas for constructive feedback during the 62nd IAE-Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and to other participants of the conference for their support in developing this paper.
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Pieniadz, A., Hockmann, H. Factors Driving Quality Standard Compliance in the Polish Dairy Sector. Atl Econ J 36, 41–52 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-007-9101-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-007-9101-y