Comparative analysis of the relationship between the producer and consumer price index of beef and chicken meat in South Africa from 1991to 2018

Abstract

Beef and chicken meat play a very crucial role in providing food to South African consumers. However, the rise of food prices in South Africa is viewed to curtail progress and drives consumers into debt and forgone opportunity to access food. Hence, it is of importance to understand the consumer price index (CPI) of meat and the disaggregate components of beef and chicken meat producer price indexes (PPI) as they give a clear insight into how individual commodities contribute to the general and food price inflation. The study aimed to comparatively analyse the relationship between PPI beef and CPI meat as well as PPI chicken meat and CPI meat in South Africa from 1991 to 2018. The objectives of the study were to compare the indexes’ variability, correlation, and causality between the different PPI and CPI components. The objectives were analysed using the Coefficient of variation (CV), the Pearson coefficient correlation, the Granger causality test, and the Vector Error Correction model. The CV findings highlight that PPI beef had high variability (65%) compared to CPI meat (56.7%), whereas PPI chicken meat had low variability (49.2%) compared to CPI meat(56.7%). There was evidence of a positive correlation (0.99) between PPI beef and CPI meat as well as PPI chicken meat and CPI meat using Pearson coefficient correlation. In addition, a long-run relationship was found between PPI beef and CPI meat as well as between PPI chicken meat and CPI meat by using the VEC model. Granger causality results indicated that there was a unidirectional relationship from PPI chicken meat to CPI meat, and independent relationships were found from PPI beef to CPI meat, CPI meat to PPI beef as well as CPI meat to PPI chicken meat. Based on the findings, the study recommends that policymakers, through evaluation of monetary policies, should continue maintaining a specific inflation target range as that will assist in stabilising meat prices in the economy. At the same time, protect meat producers against input price inflation using instruments such as input subsidies, grants, and the provision of modern technologies.