ABSTRACT
Conducting an empirical study of integration in China’s cattle and beef markets faces the daunting challenge of an extreme paucity of data. Thus, findings from the empirical analysis reported need to be treated with caution and in the light of the limitations imposed by the data. The sparsity and unreliability of price data make it difficult and not especially useful to conduct sophisticated analyses to investigate the extent to which the beef market is integrated across space and time. The convergence of regional prices based on the transition stage of industry development can appear in empirical studies as prices not moving together even though the regional industries are becoming more rather than less integrated. The broad tendency for beef price levels across the regions to converge over the period complicates the empirical analysis aimed at uncovering real developments in regional cointegration.
