青果物卸売市場における仲卸業者・売買参加者の構造変化と市場行動: 九州都市部のA市場を事例として

The system and rules of wholesale markets have been changed to fit with the growing size of supermarkets and large scale intermediate wholesalers who deal with supermarkets. Among the buyers of wholesale markets, there also are small intermediate wholesalers and authorized buyers, who are often ignored when researches discuss the rules. The rules that have been revised in recent years may cause a loss of fairness in the wholesale markets. If we want to evaluate the change of rule and system of wholesale markets, it is essential to grasp how many members there are and if transactions are adversely affected now and in the future. This study analyzed the structural changes of buying side in wholesale markets including small-scale intermediate wholesalers and authorized buyers. The main results of the analysis are, firstly, that authorized buyers account for 34% of purchases of the city A wholesale market. Thus, wholesale markets are not in oligopsony by large-scale intermediate wholesalers. Secondly, some authorized buyers have not only the retailing function but also the wholesaling function, which was abandoned by large-scale buyers. These situations seem resistant to drastic change in the future. Therefore, we conclude that an adverse effect for the fairness in the wholesale markets by recent amendment in the rules are not small and will persist in the future.