Instability in prices of selected non-vegetarian commodities in India: an analysis of post-liberalisation period

Abstract

Instability in prices of agricultural commodities has implications on various sectors of the economy and livelihood of millions of rural households. Liberalisation of the economy since early 1990s is believed to import the instability in the international prices to the domestic prices. The present study has analysed the instability in the prices of non-milk livestock commodities in India since liberalisation. There was a general rise in the prices of the livestock commodities but during the later periods, rising trend has decelerated for all commodities. The instability has also declined during the recent periods, except for a few commodities. The study has also decomposed the prices into its constituent components, viz. seasonal, trend and cyclical and irregular components. The seasonal effects are generally high during the periods of December to June. The variability in the cyclical and irregular components was found to increase during the later periods. The effect of these factors varied across commodities.