Previous work on market disintegration in the period between World War One and World War Two has relied on advanced econometric models. My paper will apply simpler econometric techniques to the dataset used in a recent article to investigate whether these techniques are capable of illustrating market disintegration. World War One shattered international trade, reversing centuries of market integration. In the interwar period, Chicago and Winnipeg were the two largest wheat centers in North America. Both cities exported wheat to London, providing an opportunity to examine variations between each trading partner. The period 1927-1932 represents market conditions prior to and in the immediate aftermath of the Great Depression. Four techniques will illustrate disintegration: data on annual price gaps (popular in early market integration literature); prices in location 1 as a percentage of prices in location 2 for select years; the coefficient of variation; and a linear time trend.
