Land-based Salmon Aquaculture in Japan : A study on how a new supply of salmon from land-based salmon facilities in Japan may affect imports in the Japanese salmon market

Abstract

This study’s research question is how a new supply of domestically sourced salmon from land-based facilities in Japan may impact imports to the Japanese salmon market. By using import statistics and domestic data from the Tokyo wholesale market, I estimate the Armington elasticity between foreign and domestic salmon. This elasticity provides an estimate of the level of substitution of different products of salmon from several countries, which provides insights to how the different imports will react to domestic changes in volume and price. My findings show that there are significant differences in the Armington elasticity between different imports, especially between fresh and frozen salmon. Furthermore, I modelled how two imports displaying a different level of substitution, fresh Atlantic salmon from Norway and Australia, may be affected by the domestic changes differently. These projections found that Norway, with a lower estimated Armington elasticity, is much more resistant to domestic changes compared to Australia.