ABSTRACT
Catfish is the leading aquacultural product in the nation, with more than 360 millions pounds produced in 1990. Price and advertising information for catfish in a Texas market are available, as is seasonality information for the 1987-1988 period. The consumer demand model specified in this study is similar to that used in Capps and Lambregts. The specification is modified to estimate the seasonal components involved with several demand variables. In this study, seasonality enters the demand relationship not only autonomously through the intercept but also in the own-price, cross-cut price, and own- and cross-cut advertising variables. In estimating both models, the collinearity diagnostics described by Belsley, Kuh and Welsch indicated severely degrading multi-collinearity associated with the use of the polynomial variables. The seasonality found in this study was significant with regard to own-price, own-advertising and the intercept for whole catfish. The difference in own-price elasticity for the two catfish products has implications for all members in marketing channel.
