11 pages, In this paper, we investigate the interdependence among changes in the prices of beef, pork, and chicken in Japan using a time-varying coefficient vector autoregressive model. Our empirical analysis using monthly data from January 1990 to March 2014 shows that changes in beef prices have long-term influences on changes in pork and chicken prices. Moreover, current changes in the prices of beef, pork, and chicken are closely related to changes in their prices in the preceding two months. Additionally, we do not find that the bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreak announced by the Japanese government in September 2001 had a long-term influence on the dynamic relationships among changes in the prices of beef, pork, and chicken in Japan.
