Market Integration in Wholesale Rice Markets in India

This paper tests for market integration in 55 wholesale rice markets in India using monthly data over the period January 1970 – December 1999. The technique of Gonzalez-Rivera and Helfand (2001) is used to identify common factors across various markets. It is discovered that market integration is far from complete in India and a major reason for this is the excessive interference in rice markets by government agencies. As a result it is hard for scarcity conditions in isolated markets to be picked up by markets with abundance in supply. A number of policy implications are also considered. All correspondence to: Prof. Raghbendra Jha, ASARC, Division of Economics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Phone: + 61 2 6125 2683 Fax: +61 2 6125 0443 Email: [email protected]