An empirical analysis of pork price fluctuations in China with the autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model

Abstract

Pork price fluctuations are closely related to the national economy and people’s livelihoods in China. Based on the monthly pork price fluctuations in China from January 2011 to August 2022, this study uses ARCH family models to assess the characteristics and laws of these fluctuations in China. The pork price fluctuations show obvious clustering, with external shock information from the previous month affecting the pork price in the following period; the pork market price is characterized by risk compensation, with the high risk of pork supply driving the pork price up. In addition, the pork price fluctuations are characterized by asymmetry, with a greater impact of good than of bad news on the pork price. Due to the pork industry’ low entry threshold and the existence of sunk costs, positive information on the pork market has a stronger impact on price fluctuations than negative information. To guide pork supply, we recommend improving monitoring and early-warning mechanisms in the pork market to identify the pork price volatility threshold and measure the price volatility. In addition, price index insurance products should be constantly strengthened, with different types of insurance products being offered to meeting the insurance demand of various sectors in the pig meat supply chain.