농산물 가격 책정방식에 따른 소비자 잉여 비교분석 :

(Floating Prices vs. Fixed Prices :

Consumer cooperatives usually adopt the fixed price policy for highly price volatile agricultural products. Economic theories suggest that consumers are better off when the market prices are high due to short supply or strong demand. However, consumers often complain about the fixed price policy when the market prices are low and stable. The objective of this study is to analyze which is more beneficial between floating pricing policy and fixed pricing policy for consumers in terms of the welfare perspective. For this, we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation and compare consumer surpluses from both pricing policies. The results show that the fixed prices provide higher welfare for consumers, as the economic theory suggests. The risk premium to accept the floating prices is estimated around 7 percent for the sample products. The results give some implications about the value of the government policies for price stability.