FACTORS AFFECTING THE PRICE OF HOGS 
Final transfer of ownership occurs when the retailer sells the 
product to the housewife, boarding-house keeper, or other person 
who prepares it for the " ultimate consumer." The prices actually 
paid for the same product in different stores vary widely with the 
class of store and the amount of service which the retailer gives; 
though competition between retail stores is so keen that, as between 
stores of the same class providing the same service, there is usually 
little difference in price. 
TVhat the consumer can be induced to pay for the meat he buys, 
is the final fact which limits the price which retailers can pay at 
wholesale: and the price for which the products can be sold at whole- 
sale limits the price which packers can pay for the live hog. There 
is thus a general correspondence between retail prices, wholesale 
prices for meats, and wholesale prices for live hogs, as illustrated in 
Figure 4. It is true, however, that at certain periods or seasons 
the retail meat prices do not move with the wholesale meat prices; 
and, further, that as between widely separated years, there are 
marked differences in the relation of retail prices and wholesale 
HOG PRICES AT DIFFERENT CENTRAL MARKETS 
Fig. 6. — Hog prices at Chicago and four other central markets since 1922, There is hut little dif- 
erence between the movements at Chicago and at other markets with the exception of occasional 
short periods 
prices to live-hog prices. This is especially true of the relation 
before the war and since the deflation period. (Fig. 5.) 
INTERRELATION OF PRICES AT DIFFERENT CENTRAL MARKETS 
It is only in large central markets that a general market price 
obtains. Following the prices backward from the central market to 
the producer, or forward to the consumer, other conditions peculiar 
to each local situation come into prominence, so that the structure 
of retail prices from one city to another, or of country market prices 
from one State to another, is not nearly so closely integrated as are 
prices at the several central livestock markets. For the analysis of 
the relation of basic factors which affect prices over the country as 
a whole, therefore, the central market price is the most significant. 
Hmce the greater part of this bulletin is devoted to an analysis of 
prices at the wholesale market. 
r Figure 6 shows the prices for the same grade and weight of hogs at 
Chicago and at a number of the other larger markets. It is evident 
that there is but little difference in the prices at the several markets 
and that prices fluctuate together rather closely, with about the 
