Comparison of the beef prices in selected countries of the European Union

Functional data analysis is used to examine beef price differences in selected countries of the European Union from 2006 to 2011. The prices are modeled as functional observations. The analysis is conducted in three steps relating to three kinds of functional data analysis. First the observations are smoothed with roughness penalty. Then functional principal analysis is applied. Finally functional analysis of variance is used to reveal significant difference between two given groups of countries.