Are There Price Asymmetries in the U.S. Beef Market? [pdf]
&gt;&gt; Beef packers have flexibility to store beef in their coolers when short run wholesale prices decline and as such they can buffer wholesale beef price changes through adjustments to beef inventories.<p>&gt;&gt; The inventory flexibility beef packers have is a probable explanation<p>Rather than conjecture, why couldn&#x27;t they just phone up each packer and ask if that&#x27;s what&#x27;s happening? Why do we need pontification in this case when we could just go look?<p>The language in the paper just makes me think the whole thing should be ignored. E.g. there are sentences like:<p>&gt;&gt; This indicates that farm prices generally respond similarly to downstream market price increases and decreases<p>Which i can&#x27;t help but read as &quot;inidcates&quot; but doesn&#x27;t prove, &quot;generally&quot; but not always, &quot;similarly&quot; but with differnces.