The Spanish Hake Market: Price, Product and Market Relationships

Traditionally, seafood consumption has been very important in Spain. Hake (merluza) is the main fish species consumed in terms of quantity and value in Spain, accounting for almost 30 per cent of total Spanish fish consumption. European hake (Merluccius merluccius) has been the most captured demersal fish in Spain for many years, but its catch levels nowadays cannot fulfil the whole demand for hake. As a result, Spanish consumption is very dependent on imports. Furthermore, there are several fish species commercialised as hake that do not belong to the Merluccius genus, or the Merluccidae family. The present study characterises several hake products (depending on the species, gear fished and size) in several levels of the market chain, by estimating the flexibilities and investigating the presence of market power along the value chain for these products. The analysis clearly confirms the existence of a very large range of products categorised as hake. Scale flexibilities point out the existence of different luxury, normal and inferior products commercialised as hake. Own price flexibilities indicate that all products behave as inflexible goods. Cross price flexibilities demonstrate different hake products behave as substitutes for the most part. Cross price flexibilities also illustrate that different hake products may have different relationships with other fish products. The asymmetry analysis, on both price-quantity and price-transmission, also supports the evidence of these different behaviours and it helps explain the commercialisation process. Finally, and as an example of the economic analysis utility, it is built a theoretically optimal exploitation pattern that is analysed and compared with the current hake exploitation pattern in the Gulf of Lion. Then, it is discussed the implication of these results, why this divergence exists and how the different factors may affect the exploitation pattern