Stewart, Hayden

January, 2023

US Household Purchases of Dairy Milk and Plant-Based Milk Alternatives

By: Stewart, Hayden; Dong, Diansheng
US household purchases of fluid dairy milk and plant-based milk alternatives are investigated using household-level data from the 2018 National Consumer Panel. About 58.5% of all households bought only dairy milk and 4.4% bought only plant-based products over the course of that year. Another 37.1% switched between the two types of products, buying dairy milk on most shopping occasions and plant-based products on a smaller number of occasions. Dairy milk will not likely lose out to plant-based products anytime soon given these purchase patterns; rather, the two products may coexist, with plant-based options playing a minor role.
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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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December, 2005

The Demand for Food Away from Home: Do Other Preferences Compete with Our Desire to Eat Healthfully?

By: Stewart, Hayden; Blisard, Noel; Jolliffe, Dean; Bhuyan, Sanjib
Health-oriented government agencies have had limited success at encouraging Americans to eat a healthful diet. One reason may be that other preferences compete with our desire to eat healthfully. We explore the effect of consumer preferences on the demand for food away from home, including frequency of eating out and choice of outlet type. Preferences for convenience and ambience are found to influence behavior. Furthermore, omitting these variables from econometric models can bias the estimated effect of preferences for a healthful diet.
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December, 2003

Do Income Constraints Inhibit Spending on Fruits and Vegetables Among Low-Income Households?

By: Stewart, Hayden; Blisard, Noel; Jolliffe, Dean
This study assesses whether income constraints inhibit spending on fruits and vegetables among low-income households. If this is the case, then it is hypothesized that the distribution of expenditures on fruits and vegetables by low-income households should be stochastically dominated by the distribution of expenditures on these same food items by other households. Moreover, it must be the case that low-income households would increase their spending on fruits and vegetables in response to an increase in their income. Using household data from the 2000 Consumer Expenditure Survey, a test of stochastic dominance is performed. Censored quantile regressions are also estimated at selected points of the conditional expenditure distribution. Low income households are found to spend less on fruits and vegetables than other households, but they are not responsive to changes in income.
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