Author
McCluskey, Jill J.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt changes in food purchases and consumer behavior because of both supply and demand shocks. Stay-at-home orders resulted in large reductions in demand for food consumed in food-away-from-home settings. At the same time, the demand for food purchased at grocery stores and online spiked. We analyze the association between pandemic, related media coverage, and prices of specialty crop commodities. We find that prices of specialty crops consumed mostly away from home exhibited a demonstrative negative relationship with the pandemic and associated media coverage compared to specialty crops consumed mostly at home.
We investigate the relationship between the level of food safety risk in retail food establishments and average incomes in surrounding communities. Building on the environmental justice literature, we hypothesize that there is a relationship between community income levels and levels of food safety risk. Using data on the prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) obtained from grocery store delis, we find that stores located in census tracts whose residents are in lower income quartiles have greater Lm prevalence. An indicator for American Indian and Alaskan Native residents also has a positive statistically significant relationship with food safety risk.
Marketing orders are government-supported cartels designed to help farmers by allowing them to set production quotas and quality standards. Given that, it is surprising that a growing number have been voluntarily terminated in recent decades by their constituent farmers. To better understand why, we construct a novel data set on the timing of initiation and termination of marketing orders active between 1974 and 2019 and estimate duration models to examine the impact of specific factors on marketing orders’ probability of survival. We find that the most significant factor affecting marketing order persistence is whether the order had a corresponding marketing agreement.
When purchasing experience goods, consumers often rely on information from expert evaluations. In this article, we quantify how expert information impacts prices across product segments. For higher-end products, consumers have the incentive to invest more time in research prior to purchase. Thus, expert evaluations should have a greater impact on the price of higher-end segments. We analyze the effects of tasting notes on wine prices across price categories and find that certain keywords used in tasting notes to describe wine characteristics exert a significant influence on wine prices. These effects vary across different segments, with the greatest impact on the premium segment.
Although mass-produced beers still represent the vast majority of U.S. beer sales, there has been a significant growth trend in the craft beer segment. This study analyzes the demand for beer as a differentiated product and estimates own-price, cross-price, and income elasticities for beer by type: craft beer, mass-produced beer, and imported beer. We verify that beer is a normal good with a considerably inelastic demand and also find that the cross-price elasticity across types of beer is close to zero. The results suggest that there are effectively separate markets for beer by type.
Ethylene treatments provide an effective method for shortening post-harvest ripening periods for winter Anjou pears and allow market availability throughout the year. However, pear quality may vary under different treatments. A sensory experiment and a consumer survey including questions that address valuation, assessments of sensory characteristics, purchasing habits, and demographics were conducted. Analyses indicate that treatment-induced quality losses significantly affect consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP). Mean WTP for each treatment reveals that consumers prefer pears with a six-day ethylene treatment and are willing to pay a premium of $0.25/pound compared to the market price.
This paper analyzes a monopolist’s behavior when consumers cannot observe the production standards. These types of products are usually known as credence goods. The steady-state level of quality with credence goods is found to be lower than that with experience goods, and perfect information goods. The finding that only perceived quality, which is effectively a filtered version of true quality, affects reputation indicates rewards for high quality production are lower in the credence good case. Further, an increase in the level of monitoring can increase the true level of product quality in the market for credence goods.
We assess consumer choice of eco-labeled, organic, and regular apples, and identify sociodemographic characteristics affecting the choice among those three alternatives. Eco-labeled apples are less desirable than organic when food safety, the environment, and children’s needs are considered. Characteristics that may be expected to positively affect the decision to buy eco-labeled apples relative to regular apples actually have the opposite effect with the inclusion of the organic alternative. When considering all three choices, the eco-labeled product is found to be an intermediate choice among consumers.
Recent rangeland reform attempts have increased ranchers’ uncertainty of retaining grazing permits on federal land. This uncertainty is analyzed with a model of grazing on federal land. Ranchers facing this uncertainty will behave differently than if they were guaranteed the renewal of grazing permits at constant real grazing fees. It is shown that the socially optimal outcome may be achieved by adding avoidable risk through targeted rangeland reform. Rangeland reform attempts that create unavoidable risk can make both ranchers and environmental groups worse off.