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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between regulatory changes, returns on equity and stock market valuations for Canadian food and non-food agribusinesses. Design/methodology/approach – Two empirical approaches are employed. First, an event study is used to evaluate the impact of official regulatory announcements on the stock market valuations of selected Canadian agribusinesses. Next, an approach introduced by Mishra et al. using the Du Pont expansion is applied to investigate the effect of regulations on firms' accounting profits. Data on Canadian food and non-food agribusinesses are collected from Bloomberg, Thompson One Banker and SEDAR. Findings – The event study demonstrates that official regulatory announcement dates do not correspond with abnormal stock market returns for Canadian firms, while the Du Pont model yields mixed evidence with respect to their accounting profits. Research limitations/implications – This paper only considers publicly traded companies. As a result, survivorship bias may exist. Future research should include privately held and cooperative firms. Social implications – Food regulations can influence firm profits and shareholder wealth, so understanding how government actions influence agribusiness is important when considering the total costs of current and future food policy. Originality/value – The interaction between policy and the financial performance of Canada's publicly traded agribusinesses is an under-researched area and no studies have examined Canadian data. The results of this study are valuable to both policy makers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors influencing the development and commercialization of functional food and nutraceutical (FFN) products are explored. Count data models are developed to relate firm, market, and regulatory covariates to the number of FFN product lines firms have under development, on the market, and in total. Canadian firm-level innovation data were taken from Statistics Canada (2003) Functional Food and Nutraceutical Survey. Firms involved in product development/scale-up had more product lines in total and on the market. Firms with a strong and positive perception of the impact of regulatory reform related to generic health claims and harmonization of Canadian regulations with U.S. regulations had fewer product lines in total and on the market. Firms with more positive perceptions of the business impact of structure and function health claims had more product lines on the market. One implication of the study is the importance of developing policies and reforming regulations which better enable use of generic health claims on FFN products. Further, policies which better enable or foster development/scale-up of product lines would increase the Canadian FFN sector's ability to develop new products. [EconLit: O130, L500, Q180]. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), there has been a dramatic increase in the integration of markets for live cattle and beef products in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. These markets were severely disrupted in 2003 by the confirmation of single cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada and the United States. The bulk of this disruption could have been avoided if the countries had developed more closely coordinated risk management programs based on the guidance of international standards. The BSE events illustrate that failure to address regulatory integration leaves integrated markets vulnerable to recurring disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]