Abstract

The world shrimp market has been dominated by producer and consumer regional players. Currently, the United States of America, Japan and European Union are the major destination markets for warm-water shrimp, while South America, Asia and Central America, the major producers. Since the early 1980’s, however, increased world production of especially cultured shrimp has resulted in an annual situation where world shrimp supply has increased relative to world shrimp demand. This has subsequently led to decreasing annual export prices. Related and of importance, there tends to be regional differences in relative prices of imported shrimp. Based on quarterly data from 1990 through 2006, import demand and export supply equations are developed for the primary consuming and producing regions. Reduced form equations are then estimated to simulate the influence of changes in exogenous factors (e.g., cultured production from a given region, income in the producing region) on exports (and export prices) to consuming regions. Finally, we examine the impact of changes in export prices resulting from changes in cultured and wild shrimp production on the U.S. domestic dockside price.

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