Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana

Amarchey, Christina Antwiago; Kwakwa, Paul Adjei Article Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana Cogent Business & Management Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Amarchey, Christina Antwiago; Kwakwa, Paul Adjei (2024) : Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana, Cogent Business & Management, ISSN 2331-1975, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2311222 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/326034 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Cogent Business & Management ISSN: 2331-1975 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/oabm20 Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana Christina Antwiago Amarchey & Paul Adjei Kwakwa To cite this article: Christina Antwiago Amarchey & Paul Adjei Kwakwa (2024) Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana, Cogent Business & Management, 11:1, 2311222, DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2024.2311222 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2311222 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 09 Feb 2024. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 904 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=oabm20 Marketing | review article Cogent Business & ManageMent 2024, VoL. 11, no. 1 , 2311222 Spatial market integration analysis of plantain markets in mid Ghana christina antwiago amarcheya and Paul adjei kwakwab aFaculty of Development studies, Presbyterian university, ghana; bschool of arts and social sciences, university of energy and natural Resources, sunyani ghana ABSTRACT the paper estimates the degree of integration of plantain prices in three selected markets to assess the efficiency of the plantain marketing system in mid ghana. the selected markets are techiman in Bono east region, kenyasi and Duayaw nkwanta markets both in ahafo region of ghana. the spatial market integration analysis was done using the error correction model on monthly wholesale real prices in ghana cedis (gH¢) per 9–11 kg bunch of plantain from 2006 to 2015. the findings of the analysis indicate that the plantain markets are weakly integrated spatially with an overall degree of integration of 17 percent which suggests weak market efficiency. therefore, strengthening the implementation of government policy on market information, especially in producing areas, will be useful in improving plantain market efficiency. IMPACT STATEMENT Plantain’s role as a source of food and income among ghanaian households cannot be overemphasized. However, like it is with many african countries, inefficiency in marketing the product is prevalent in the country. there are many marketing problems that smallholder farmers encounter which determine how far plantain production can be expanded. various efforts have been made by governments to address the marketing situation of staple food crops, in general, but they appear to be inadequate. Yet, marketing of plantain has not received as much attention as is given to its production. this study ascertains the efficiency of the plantain marketing system in mid ghana by estimating the extent of spatial integration of plantain markets in the area. analysis showed that there exists both long-run and short-run market integration among plantain markets in mid ghana, albeit weak in each case. Suggestions to improve situations are provided. 1. Introduction the recent sharp increases of nearly 52 percent over and above 2019 levels in global food prices, driven by the global pandemic and shortages caused by the war in Ukraine (Okou et al., 2022), brought into focus once again the importance of food prices. Food prices organise production and help in the distribution of food produce and services, and provide for economic growth (Seabright, 2010). in essence, food prices influence the production, consumption and marketing decisions of both farmers and consumers over time, form, and space by regulating the quantity available and consumed (lohano & Mari, 2012). in this wise, Meckes et al. (2020) argue that food prices communicate information to farmers to provide more or less of food produce, service or qualitative feature of the food produce, especially through price incentives and disincentives. Moreover, food prices provide income for farmers as prices bring out the value that the produce or service deserves and therefore secure the profits needed by farmers to invest for growth (grzegorzek, 2023; Meckes et al., 2020). in the case of consumers, Seabright (2010) indicates that food prices offer the opportunity to have access and ownership of food produce in the sense that once the price is paid, ownership is transferred. this © 2024 the author(s). Published by informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis group CONTACT Paul adjei Kwakwa [email protected] school of arts and social sciences university of energy and natural Resources, sunyani ghana https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2311222 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. ARTICLE HISTORY received 10 March 2023 revised 27 December 2023 accepted 24 January 2024 KEYWORDS efficiency; error correction model; ghana; market integration; plantain REVIEWING EDITOR kithsiri H v athula, iic University of technology, Sri lanka SUBJECTS Development Studies; Finance; Business; Management and accounting 2 c. antwiagO aMarcHeY anD P. a. kwakwa becomes particularly important for poor households who spend large portions of their incomes on food consumption and many poor farmers who are mostly net buyers of staple food (Unsal etal., 2020). nonetheless, food prices do not remain static but changes occur in markets because supply and demand change over time which generate corresponding responses from farmers, traders and consumers (van niekerk, 2020). van niekerk (2020) further argues that pricing influences market performance through providing signals of price differentials among markets that cause traders to move food produce to markets of higher prices for improved efficiency1 of the market. a well-integrated market therefore allows for efficient movement of trade flow that stabilises market prices and reduces the price risk (Okou et al., 2022; roman & Žáková kroupová, 2022). Market efficiency is important in food produce marketing because it forms the basis on which farmers respond with food production and marketed surplus (alam & Begum, 2007). efficient movement of food produce from the farm to consumers can produce benefits for both farmers and consumers (landes & Burfisher, 2009). it has the potential to reduce poverty as well as consumer food prices and promote private consumption, especially by low-income households (Diao etal., 2010; Okou etal., 2022). wongnaa et al. (2014) as well as van asselt et al. (2018) thus assert that efficient food produce marketing system is necessary to incentivise production, enterprise and specialisation at the farm household level for improved productivity of all sectors of the economy. in analysing the efficiency of agricultural markets, economists agree theoretically that market conditions such as information symmetry enable markets to get close to reaching economic efficiency defined by competitive conditions (antoine etal., 2021; Dercon, 2003; vercelli, 2003). in line with agricultural marketing theory, it has been identified that efficiency of markets depends, among other things, on the number of traders, the level of competition among them and on the amount and costs of information at their disposal (Federico, 2007; Mensah-Bonsu etal., 2017). improving the efficient functioning of agricultural markets, particularly for food produce, has become imperative since it seems to hold the missing link for the anticipated agricultural transformation in many developing countries (ayoo, 2022; Byerlee et al., 2005; Poulton et al., 2006). it is expected that if the food produce marketing system is efficient it could serve the remotest parts of food producing areas and give smallholder farmers the incentive to produce more and thereby engendering poverty reduction and development. More especially, areas producing the bulk of food produce such as plantain in mid ghana with a large number of smallholder farmers whose living conditions could be impacted positively by efficient food produce marketing system may need attention. the mid ghana area, covering ahafo, Bono and Bono east regions, is recognized as a large producing area for plantain (Musa paradisiaca) in ghana (MoFa, 2016). ghana is the largest producer of plantains in west africa and the second-largest in the world after cameroon (amaya, 2018). Plantain is the third most important staple food crop in ghana by production, behind cassava and yam. about 8,348,865 ha of land area is used to cultivate it (Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2017). the ashanti, eastern, ahafo, Bono, Bono east, western north, western, central, Oti and volta regions, are designated as plantain producing regions from which areas ghana produced 4.72 million tonnes of plantain in 2021(knoema, 2022). about 95 percent of the production is sold on the local market and the rest is exported (Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2017) to such countries as Senegal, Uk, France, Spain, Belgium, italy and the czech republic (agrigold Magazine, 2022). thus, plantain has significant socio-economic importance for more than two-thirds of households in the area who are engaged in it (gSS, 2013) and in ghana, as a whole, as a primary source of food and income. while the mid ghana area has fairly evenly distributed suitable vegetational zones and soils that support the production of plantains, there are some districts that make significant contributions to the production of the crop in the area. these include techiman Municipality, asutifi South and tano north Districts where the issues of plantain marketing and the attendant low production and poverty among plantain farmers are a major concern for ghana. Food produce marketing in ghana and many african countries appear to be under-developed and inefficient (coulter & Onumah, 2002; Olumba & Onunka, 2020). it is observed in most african countries that agricultural growth has been slow, largely due to the inefficient food produce marketing systems (Bjornlund etal., 2020; ngeleza & robinson, 2011). codjoe (2007) also notes that food production in ghana has performed poorly and attributes this partly to a lack of marketing incentives for smallholder food crop farmers. a number of studies on food produce markets suggest the factors that contribute to their seemingly inefficient and poor market integration. Diao et al. (2003) classify some as demand-side constraints, such as stagnant or limited demand for additional produce from domestic and regional consumers. conversely, production cOgent BUSineSS & ManageMent 3 or supply-side constraints identified include fluctuating harvests from numerous dispersed smallholder farmers who rely on rain-fed production technology; poor marketing infrastructure and high transaction costs2 (easterling et al., 2008; Onumah et al., 2007; Onyuma et al., 2006). High transaction costs may be experienced by both farmers and traders in the plantain marketing system. the high transaction costs may be a result of the cost of assembling the produce from numerous and scattered smallholder plantain farmers with poor rural transport infrastructure (gebre et al., 2022; Porter et al., 2007). consequently, seasonal gluts for plantains and other highly perishable produce combined with limited storage facilities are a common occurrence (afriyie et al., 2023; ngeleza & robinson, 2011; Yeshiwas & tadele, 2021). Other causes of high transaction costs that may be identified include information asymmetry (antoine etal., 2021; coulter & Onumah, 2002; Muli & Muli, 2019) and a lack of standardisation practices such as grading and sorting (Sefa-Dedeh, 2009; Severine et al., 2014). Sahara et al. (2013) suggest that poor relationship quality may result in the situation where farmers and traders do not share information and coordinate supply and demand to reduce transaction costs. this implies that one of the assumptions necessary for perfect competition in neoliberal theory, which is perfect information may not be satisfied and the market may be regarded as inefficient. the marginal or stagnant growth trend in the production of some food crops, particularly the more perishable ones such as plantain, in recent past is reported in some regions in mid ghana as well. Mensah-Bonsu et al. (2017) maintain that the marketing problems that smallholder farmers encounter determine how far plantain production can be expanded. However, marketing of plantain has not received as much attention as is given to its production and therefore the plantain sector is faced with many marketing problems (Mensah-Bonsu etal., 2017). the key marketing problems are low price for the produce and the fact that buyers dictate the price (Dzomeku et al., 2011). Subsequently, various efforts have been made by governments to address the marketing situation of staple food crops, in general, but they appear to be inadequate (gebre etal., 2022). even though this calls for empirical studies to inform policy towards improving the plantain marketing system, it has been observed that not many studies have been conducted in this area. the objective of the study is therefore to assess the efficiency of the plantain marketing system in mid ghana by estimating the extent of spatial integration of plantain markets in the area. the rest of the paper is made up of the theoretical and conceptual discussions and the methodology that underpinned the study. these are followed by the discussion of the results or empirical evidence. the paper ends with conclusions and discussions of the policy implications. 2.Theoretical and conceptual issues to the extent that neoliberal development theory has had a huge influence on development policies of developing countries and international institutions since the 1980s, the theory becomes important in the study of efficiency of plantain marketing. in particular, as argued by Schydlowsky (1995) and Shipp (2020), structural adjustment programmes which emerged from neoliberal theory has become the orthodox economic policy in developing countries and has affected the choice of agricultural strategies of developing countries. thus, the theory has transformed the relationships between the state and the market in rural economies (Pritchard, 2005; Shipp, 2020; thorsen, 2009). neoliberal theory posits that underdevelopment is caused by poor resource allocation as a result of incorrect pricing policies and too much state intervention (Onis & Senses, 2005). thus, ‘getting the prices right’ has been the key tenet of neoliberal theory by which it is believed economic development will be achieved as the power of market forces is allowed to operate and the state is curtailed (gatwiri et al., 2020; Hamm et al., 2012). Meanwhile, vercelli (2003) and Hayes (2023) argue that for a market to ensure the optimal allocation of resources among alternative uses, the assumptions of a perfectly competitive market must be fulfilled. Hayes (2023) outlines these assumptions as completeness of markets, zero transaction costs, absence of serious uncertainty or perfect information, sufficient thickness and extension of markets or numerous traders are fulfilled. However, these assumptions are so stringent that all of them are often not complied with, especially in developing countries, which suggests that markets in developing countries are scarcely efficient (Birdsall et al., 2010; rodrik, 2007; wFP, 2023). agricultural marketing and particularly food produce marketing has traditionally been concerned with the business activities that make food produce available to the consumer. an economic theory and a variant of the neoliberal theory that seeks to explain this process more specifically is the agricultural marketing theory. a key feature of the agricultural marketing 4 c. antwiagO aMarcHeY anD P. a. kwakwa theory has always been price. Price is important in the transaction of selling and buying and is determined by the supply and demand for the commodity (asmundson, 2023; Shepherd, 2005). it means that the seller independently sets the price and the buyer decides the value and judges the price against the perceived value and transaction happens when both the seller and the buyer realise that they benefit from it (crawford, 2006). thus, linn (2010) and Zhao etal. (2021) conclude that price and value are essentially two sides of the same phenomenon and that the relationship between them triggers transaction. Price has been described as information for the communicative processes of economic systems (ludicke, 2006). Subsequently, lohano and Mari (2012) write that prices are the signals that direct and coordinate the production and consumption decisions as well as the marketing decisions over time, form, and space. this makes the coordinating and informational roles that prices play crucial to market efficiency. Price information enables profit seeking entities to take advantage of signals of price differentials among markets to move goods to the market of higher prices (Billingsley, 2005). Billingsley explains that this practice termed arbitrage3 tends to push the prices of homogenous commodities towards equality and reinforces the ‘law of one price’ for improved efficiency of the market. the law of one price postulates that in an efficient market there must be only one price for homogenous commodities, barring transportation and other transaction costs (atingi-ego et al., 2006; cFi, 2022; linn, 2010). according to Barrett (2005), arbitrage opportunities seem to be missed in many situations where commodity price variability across space and time is observed in developing countries due to poor communications and transport infrastructure. Failure to use price in decision-making to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities thus causes price disparities to remain and the law of one price is violated (Oladapo & Momoh, 2008). However, Jensen (2009) and Falahati (2019) assert that information on price is hardly perfect and this makes it impossible for optimal arbitrage to occur since optimal arbitrage can happen only when entities involved in the market have full information. agricultural marketing theory concentrates not only on price decision-making but on price formation as well. according to rapsomanikis et al. (2003), spatial price determination models postulate that changes in supply and demand conditions in one market will affect trade and therefore prices in other markets until equilibrium4 is restored through spatial arbitrage. in addition, Mose (2007) and Suharno (2018) indicate that where two markets are linked by trade and are operating in a fair system, the impact on price will be equal in both markets if a change in demand or supply occurs in one market. this situation is also a prediction for market integration. agricultural marketing theory incorporates market integration as a condition for estimating the efficiency of marketing systems. wyeth (1992) argues that market integration is multidimensional and indicates that the dimensions comprise similarity in price variation or price integration, standardisation of measures and common trade habits. therefore, price integration is one of the necessary conditions for market integration. However, market integration is commonly referred to in terms of the co-movement of prices or price integration (Barrett, 2005; Oladapo & Momoh, 2008; roman & Žáková kroupová, 2022). Market integration is reported to have four distinct forms which are integration across space, time, product forms and within the marketing chain (tomek & robinson, 1990). Sarpong and asante (2002) explain that spatially integrated markets are markets in different locations where the difference in price is the transfer costs between them, given that there is trade between the markets. in the case of markets integrated in time, the price difference between them does not exceed the physical and financial costs of storage. Markets are integrated across product form when the price difference between two related products does not exceed processing costs (Mose, 2007). integration within the marketing chain or vertical integration happens when the producer, wholesale and retail markets for the same commodity in an area are interrelated and integrated (kanakaraj, 2010; Suharno, 2018). this study deals with spatial integration of plantain markets. ghafoor et al. (2009) define spatial market integration as the co-movement or the long-run relationship among prices in spatially separated markets. in support of this definition, ankamah-Yeboah (2012) adds that spatial market integration measures the extent to which markets at geographically distant locations share common long-run price or trade information on a similar commodity. according to acquah et al. (2012), in spatially integrated markets prices are determined at the same time in the various locations, and information of any change in price in one market is transmitted to the other markets. Spatial market integration is important in plantain marketing since plantain is bulky and perishable and consumers are located a distance away from producing areas and marketing may involve high transport costs (acquah & Owusu, 2012). the consequence of arbitrage activities in a competitive market is price cOgent BUSineSS & ManageMent 5 integration. Serra et al. (2006) note that improving information between spatially separate markets contributes significantly to spatial price integration and suggest that explicit trade between spatially separate markets is not a necessary condition for price adjustments to occur and result in price integration. agreeing that information improves the competitiveness of markets, Mose (2007), lohano and Mari (2012) as well as Birge et al. (2020) also conclude that analysing spatial price integration gives an indication of the competitiveness and the effectiveness of arbitrage in markets. integration of markets can occur to various degrees ranging from perfect market integration to complete market segmentation. rapsomanikis etal. (2003) define perfect market integration or complete price transmission between two spatially separated markets ‘as a situation where changes in one price are completely and instantaneously transmitted to the other price, as postulated by the law of One Price’ (p. 55). this definition distinguishes between short run and long run price transmission by suggesting that price transmission is incomplete if it is not instantaneously passed-through. in this case, price transmission could be incomplete in the short-run but complete in the long run when price transmission occurs completely after a time lag (ankamah-Yeboah, 2012; lohano & Mari, 2012; roman & Žáková kroupová, 2022). another important issue the definition of perfect market integration brings out is the speed by which prices adjust to the long-run relationship which also varies as a result of reasons such as policies, the number of stages in marketing and delays in transportation or processing (Serra et al., 2006). acquah etal. (2012) and Shrestha etal. (2014) argue that the shorter the time lapse for long run price transmission to be complete, the better, since longer time lapse sends out inaccurate price signals that might mislead farmers in their marketing decisions. in the case of market segmentation, on the other hand, there is absence of any price relationship and wide price differentials exist between two markets linked by trade (Dercon, 1995). Dercon, however, notes that this is rare and may only occur under situations of natural calamities or civil conflicts. Mose (2007) asserts that in the real world neither perfect integration nor segmentation has been observed, instead varying degrees of integration that occur between the two extreme cases are rather found. the varying levels of integration found in real markets can be attributed to the influence of certain factors that hinder integration. Many factors are indicated in the literature, however Sexton etal. (1991) categorise the factors into three as those causing markets not to be linked by arbitrage, those posing impediments to efficient arbitrage and those causing imperfect competition in markets. too high transaction costs and marketing margins are usually cited as the factors that hinder the transmission of price signals and prohibit arbitrage (Badiane & Shively, 1998; Falahati, 2019; rapsomanikis etal., 2003). among the factors that impede efficient arbitrage lutz et al. (1995) mention the characteristics of agricultural production, marketing and consumption such as seasonality, inadequate infrastructure, market entry barriers and unreliable market information. the group of factors causing imperfect competition in markets includes collusion among traders and poor market information which result in greater price uncertainties and consequently hinder market integration (alam & Begum, 2007; roman & Žáková kroupová, 2022; Shrestha etal., 2014). the micro-level realities of food produce markets in much of the developing world and for that matter, plantain marketing in mid ghana may include most of these factors and the markets may have low levels of market integration. nonetheless, Mose (2007) cautions that the co-movement of prices between markets in different locations or spatial market integration may not always signify a price relationship as this can also happen when there is no direct causation. the reasons attributed to this include seasonality in agriculture where markets that are not connected experience common price changes arising from similar supply variations as a result of droughts or rainfall. Monopoly control by the private sector or by a state marketing board and inflation are other reasons given for the co-movement of prices between markets (acquah et al., 2012; Jaleta & gebremedhin, 2012). Market efficiency is established when prices in two different markets differ by transfer costs (rapsomanikis et al., 2003). kanakaraj (2010) describes an efficient agricultural market as one where there is a uniform price for an identical product prevailing in the entire market area. Mensah-Bonsu et al. (2017) and Suharno (2018) report that market efficiency is based on the premise that if any two markets are integrated, a price change in one of them will be reflected in a price change in the other and the price differences between the given markets would represent only transportation costs and normal profit. therefore, markets function efficiently when they are integrated in price relationships and the more integrated a market is the more efficient it is since it tends to be more competitive (gebre etal., 2022; Shrestha et al., 2014). 6 c. antwiagO aMarcHeY anD P. a. kwakwa Barrett (2001) and Barrett and li (2002) make an important distinction between market integration and market efficiency by pointing out that while market integration is established only when tradability and non-zero trade flows conditions are satisfied, efficiency is established when prices in two different markets differ by transfer costs. However, an integrated market system has become synonymous with an efficient marketing system. lohano and Mari (2012) point out that spatial market integration of agricultural markets has been largely used as an indirect measure of market efficiency. Furthermore, ankamah-Yeboah (2012) asserts that spatial market integration is an indicator for measuring market performance. in the view of Bylund (2015) and Birge etal. (2020), the market may be efficient; however, the existence of transaction costs can make it costly to bring about the perfect competitive market structure. 3. Methodology the study was conducted in mid ghana and specifically in techiman Municipality in Bono east region and asutifi South District and tano north District, both in ahafo region (Figure 1). Until February 2019, all the three districts were part of the Brong ahafo region which was the second largest region in ghana with a land area of 39,558 km2. it shared boundaries with western region and ashanti region on the southern side, volta region to the east, northern region to the north and la cote d’ivoire to the west. Figure 1 is a map of the districts in mid ghana. Plantain production in the area is subsistent in nature with more than 90 percent of the cultivated area belonging to smallholder farmers, like the rest of food crops in ghana (Dzomeku et al., 2011). Plantain, and the food crop sector in general, is characterised with the dominance of rainfed agriculture which engenders production seasonality. Figure 1. Map of districts in mid ghana showing study area. cOgent BUSineSS & ManageMent 7 the districts in mid ghana, produce large quantities of plantain and therefore has a large population of participants in the production and marketing of plantain. according to Dzomeku etal. (2011), 113,000 households are engaged in plantain cultivation and produce a share of 27 per cent of the national production. the longitudinal research design was considered suitable for this study because the design is scientifically valid (enu-kwesi, 2005; thomas, 2022; Yin, 2009) and secondary data comprising price series were needed. Secondary data in the form of monthly wholesale nominal prices in gH¢ per 9–11 kg bunch of plantain from January 2006 to December 2015 were requested and obtained from the Ministry of Food and agriculture. the period selected was based on the availability of reliable data. the natural logarithmic of the data were used to analyse the spatial integration of the selected markets. the data covered techiman market representing techiman Municipality, Duayaw nkwanta market representing tano north District and kenyasi market representing asutifi South District. kenyasi market, though located in asutifi north District, was used to represent the asutifi South District because the market served as the district market for asutifi District of which asutifi South District was part until it was carved out in 2012 and price data continued to be jointly kept even up to 2015. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyse the data. the descriptive statistics helped to explore the data to be able to describe the distribution of variables and the relationship among them before any further analysis was done (Bhattacherjee, 2012). thus, a graph was used to represent the seasonality of plantain prices. regarding inferential statistics, correlation analysis (using Pearson, Spearman rank-order and kendall tau), cointegration analysis5 (using engel-granger and Phillips-Ouiliaris), regression (error correction model) and causality analysis (using toda and Yamamota) were used to establish the price relationships among the three spatially separated markets. the regression analysis using the error correction model is employed to find the extent and speed of price transmission among the markets so as to determine marketing efficiency. lohano and Mari (2012) applied the same measure to assess the extent and speed of price transmission among food produce markets. Prior to the regression and cointegration analyses a unit root6 tests (augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron test) were done to ensure the variables are stationary. it is noted that if markets in different locations are integrated, then there exists an equilibrium relationship among the markets (acquah & Owusu, 2012; nkendah & nsouessin, 2006). the long-run equilibrium relationship for analysing spatial market integration used in previous studies such as lohano and Mari (2012) is specified as equation (1): PP tt 12 = + αλ where P t 1 and P t 2 represent prices of a similar food produce in two alternative district markets at time t, and α and λ are unknown parameters. if two markets are perfectly spatially integrated, then λ = 1 (lohano & Mari, 2012). this represents a situation where, price changes in one market are fully reflected in the alternative market. when λ ≠ 1 (λ < 1 or λ > 1), then the degree of integration may be determined by investigating how far the deviation of λ is from unity. Since the above model of long-run relationship between markets may not satisfy at each time period, short-run dynamics is integrated with the long-run relationship and an error correction model representation of equation (1) is indicated as: ∆∆P P PP t t t tt 1 01 1 1 1 2 0 2 1=+− () −− () ++ −− β β αλ γ ε where ∆ P t i represents change in the price PP t i t i − () −1 at district i = 1, 2; β 0 , β 1 , and γ 0 are unknown parameters, and ε t is the error term. in this model, PP tt−− −− () 1 1 1 2 αλ measures the extent to which the long-run relationship is not satisfied at time period t–1. the parameter β − () 1 is interpreted as the proportion of the resulting disequilibrium adjusted in the next period. therefore, the term β αλ − () −− () −− 11 1 1 2 PP tt is the error correction term. the adjustment process makes sense if 0 ≤ β 1 < 1. when β 1 is close to 0, the speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium is very fast. when β 1 is close to 1, the speed of adjustment is very slow (lohano & Mari, 2012). the linear error correction model approach was used in this study since a linear regression post estimation (reSet) test indicated that the model is fit and that the linearity assumption is not violated see table 1. 14 c. antwiagO aMarcHeY anD P. a. kwakwa 4. a market is at equilibrium if at the market price the quantity demanded is equal to the quantity supplied. the price at which the quantity demanded is equal to the quantity supplied is the equilibrium price or market clearing price (Salish & Mcclung, 2020). 5. cointegration refers to the situation where two or more variables are each non-stationary, yet there exists a combination of these variables which is stationary (rehal, 2023a). the variables are said to have a long-run or equilibrium relationship. the variables may diverge from their equilibrium position in the short run but have the tendency to converge towards the long-run equilibrium position. if cointegration exists between two variables that share similar non-stationary properties, then regression can proceed without generating spurious results (rehal, 2023b). the aim of cointegration test is thus to find out if a linear combination of non-stationary variables is stationary. Some popular tests used for this purpose are engle-granger, Phillips-Ouliaris and Johansen test. 6. it is a unit of measurement to determine how much stationarity a time series model has. a stationary time series is one whose statistical properties such as mean, variance, autocorrelation, etc are all constant over time, a situation which makes predictions easier and are essential for the calculation of reliable test statistics (Mohr, 2020). it therefore becomes important to test for stationarity or unit root before analysing any time series data (Mensah-Bonsu etal., 2017). Some key methods used in testing for stationarity are the augmented Dickey-Fuller (aDF) test and the Phillips and Perron test. Statements and declarations • ethics approval and consent to participate: not applicable. • Data availability: the datasets analyzed during the current study are available upon request. • competing interests: the author declare that they have no competing interests. • Funding: the authors received no funding for this study. • research involving Human Participants and/or animals: not applicable. • informed consent: the study did not rely on data or participants for whom consent was needed. Authors’ contribution all authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work. christina antwiago amarchey: conceptualization, data collection and analysis, drafting of paper, revising it critically for intellectual content and final approval of the version to be published. Paul adjei kwakwa: Data analysis, correspondence, revising it critically for intellectual content final approval of the version to be published. Disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). About the authors Christina Antwiago Amarchey is a lecturer with the Presbyterian University ghana. Her research interest is in the area of sustainable development, sanitation, agricultural economics, rural and community development among others. Paul Adjei Kwakwa is a Senior lecturer with the University of energy and natural resources, Sunyani, ghana, where he teaches economics and economics-related subjects. His research interests focus on economic growth, economic development, and environmental and resource economics. ORCID Paul adjei kwakwa http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6516-217X References abankwah, v., Fialor, S. c., & aidoo, r. (2013). Performance efficiency of the liberalised agricultural pesticide marketing system in ghana. International Journal of Arts & Sciences, 6(1), 1. cOgent BUSineSS & ManageMent 15 acquah, H. D., & Owusu, r. (2012). 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