In the early 2000s, the abalone industry grew rapidly with the spread of abalone seaweed farming. However, the distribution structure of the abalone industry has not developed significantly compared to the time when natural abalone was produced in small quantities. Also, supply and demand are still unstable and various problems such as shipping and some practices like addition are raised. Recognizing these problems, some prior research has been conducted on the distribution structure of the abalone industry, but the reality is that research is still insufficient and the problem has not been improved.
This study was conducted to determine the efficiency of the distribution process of the abalone industry, that is, whether there is market dominance. In addition, it was intended to find out whether there is an asymmetric price transfer phenomenon between the distribution stage of the abalone industry.
The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, reflecting the results of the unit root test and Grandeur causality test, the asymmetric price transition effect on the abalone price between producer and wholesale market(Hanam, Incheon) was found to be positive(+). This suggests that the distribution structure is incomplete between the producer and the wholesale market and the abalone market is operating inefficiently.
Second, as a result of estimating the market power between the producer and the wholesale market, the market power coefficient between the producer and the Hanam wholesale market, and the producer and the Incheon wholesale market were 0.0618 and 0.0735, but they were relatively weak.
Summarizing the analysis results, the abalone market has an asymmetric price transition between producer and wholesale markets, but the market dominance coefficient is relatively low. These results suggest that the asymmetry of price transition is mainly caused by market dominance, as suggested by Seung Jun-ho and Kondo Takumi (2022), but can also be caused by other factors such as information asymmetry. In the future, in addition to the market dominance of the abalone market, it is judged that research on factors related to the asymmetry of price transition is necessary.