Carlson, Andrea

May, 2023

I Say Milk, You Say Mylk: Substitution Patterns and Separability in a Broadened Milk Category

By: Ghazaryan, Armen; Bonanno, Alessandro; Carlson, Andrea
This study tests the assumption of weak separability between demand for dairy and nondairy milk products by using food scanner data from 2012 to 2017 and estimating linear-approximate EASI demand systems. Our results show that the weak separability structures can be rejected. First, this finding shows that nondairy milk products compete with dairy milk for consumersÕ budget allocated to milk. Second, although milk demand studies often do not include nondairy milk, or assume weak separability, the exclusion of these productsÑor the separability assumptionsÑmay lead to biased estimates.
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April, 2014

Association between Total Diet Cost and Diet Quality Is Limited

By: Carlson, Andrea; Dong, Diansheng; Lino, Mark
There is a common perception that it costs more to eat a healthy diet than a less healthy one. We derive a panel data model that accounts for unobserved specific individual effects to estimate the relationship between diet quality and total daily food expenditure. Since total daily diet cost and diet quality are both calculated from the foods chosen in our data, we account for the fact that there is an endogenous relationship between diet quality and cost. We find that while total daily food expenditure is statistically significant in relation to diet quality, the degree of association is very small.
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December, 2012

Is Generational Change Contributing to the Decline in Fluid Milk Consumption?

By: Stewart, Hayden; Dong, Diansheng; Carlson, Andrea
U.S. per capita fluid milk consumption has decreased since the 1940s. This study uses data collected between 1977 and 2008 from USDA surveys to investigate whether generational change is a contributing factor. More recent generations are found to consume less whole milk and less lower-fat milk, controlling for their age at the time of the survey and other consumption determinants. These findings underscore the importance of checkoff programs, the National School Lunch Program, and other initiatives that encourage children to consume milk. Our methodology may also be adapted to analyze long-run trends in the consumption of other foods.
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