Assessing the Effectiveness of Price Observation Policies on Food Inflation in Europe: A Difference-in-Differences Approach

Market transparency is an important goal of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Recent EU legislation requires Member States (MS) to report prices not only of agricultural commodities but of food at various levels of the value chains. Whereas some MS are reluctant to publish the information they collect, others have developed elaborate information systems. In this paper, we look at potential systemic differences in the evolution of prices and margins along the food supply chain related to food price monitoring along the value chain and look at potential lessons for Austria.