The Study of the Relationship between the Hog Transaction Prices and Quantities in the Meat Wholesale Market— The Case of Changhua County Meat Wholesale Market

The event of porcine epidemic diarrhea diseases (PED) occurred during 2013-2014 in Taiwan. PED is the high infectious diseases and it causes vomiting and diarrhea in all ages of hogs. Therefore, the study investigates the relationship between the hog transaction prices and quantities in the Changhua County meat wholesale market, including the regular period, the PED-event period, and after-PED-event period. Based on the method of linear regression models, the results found are as follows. First, the simple regression model with only daily or week-average price as independent variable cannot predict the transaction quantities in the following trading day. In addition, the multiple regression model with five week-average prices provides better prediction power. Second, the multiple regression model also finds better prediction results during the PED event. Finally, the model with five week-average prices for the period of after-PED-event has R equal to 0.281 is the best as well. In summary, the values of R2 for three periods mentioned above are 0.074, 0.274, and 0.281, respectively when the models apply five week-average prices as explanatory variables. Therefore, they are the best for providing best forecast results.