Gregory Colson

German and British Consumer Willingness to Pay for Beef Labeled with Food Safety Attributes

The European Union has implemented some of the most stringent food safety policies for beef globally, ranging from banning growth hormones to mandating country of origin labeling. Using choice experiments and random parameter logit models, we examine German and British consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for American, Canadian, Argentinian, French, German and British beef, quality assurance seals, hormone-free beef production and a gourmet label. We also determine how consumer WTP for these food safety and quality attributes is affected by the extent to which consumers consider food safety issues (FSI). Results indicate that British consumers had the lowest WTP for beef from Argentina and German consumers had the lowest WTP for beef from Great Britain. The hormone-free label was the relatively most preferred label by consumers in both countries, and by those who considered FSI to affect their meat consumption patterns.

A Return of the Threshing Ring? A Case Study of Machinery and Labor-Sharing in Midwestern Farms

Machinery-sharing provides an alternative for smaller producers to obtain the efficiencies of large farming operations and remain competitive in an increasingly concentrated agricultural industry. This research uses a multiple case study design to examine the motivations for sharing equipment and labor among farms and to better understand how group members handle the transaction costs of sharing. Our case evidence finds that in addition to cost savings, access to reliable labor is an important motivation for participating in a sharing arrangement. Trust and frequent communication among group members helps to minimize the transaction costs incurred from sharing.

The Post 2008 Food Before Fuel Crisis: Theory, Literature, and Policies

As early as 1983, research began to appear indicating the potential for biofuel production to emerge as a disruptive force in US and world food sectors (Barnard, 1983). Of particular concern in early and present research is that increased use of agricultural outputs for energy, as opposed to foodstuffs, could ultimately lead to a net welfare loss where the benefits of biofuels are outweighed by the negative consequences linked to reduced food availability. This dilemma emerges due to the direct competition between biofuel and food production for the same renewable and nonrenewable resources critical for their sustainability (Rajagopal and Zilberman, 2007 and von Urff, 2007). In 2007-2008, global food prices experienced a significant upward spike resulting in political and economic instability, conflict, and hardships in both the developed and developing world. Figure 1 illustrates the United Nations FAO monthly food price index and the cereals price index since 2000. As indicated in the figure, in 2006 food prices started to rise with the most rapid increases occurring in 2007 through the middle of 2008 when an equally rapid price decline occurred. Relative to the general food price index, the increase in cereal prices was more pronounced.

Measuring and tracking obesity inequality in the United States: evidence from NHANES, 1971-2014

BackgroundBecause people care about their weight relative to peers and society, obesity inequality plays a role in explaining obesity incidence and the impacts of being obese on subjective well-being. While the increase in obesity prevalence and mean body mass index (BMI) is well documented, the measurement of distributional changes and corresponding obesity inequality is yet to be fully explored.MethodsThe present study analyzed BMI data for adults aged 20 to 74 from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) I (1971-1974), II (1976-1980), III (1988-1994), and continuous NHANES (1999-2014). We applied tools developed to measure income inequality to analyze the inter-temporal variation in the BMI distribution among US adults. Using stochastic dominance tests, we construct partial orderings on cumulative BMI distributions during the study period. Shapley decompositions and inequality indices are employed to quantify the source and extent of temporal variation and decompose the inequality into within and between-group components considering age, gender, and race.ResultsThe BMI distribution of each NHANES study first-order stochastically dominated the BMI distribution of the previous wave from 1971-1974 to 2003-2006, whereas more recent comparisons failed to reject the null hypothesis of non-dominance. The Shapley decomposition analysis revealed that horizontal shifts of BMI distributions accounted for a majority of the increase in obesity prevalence since 1988-1991. Especially in recent years when the rate of obesity growth has slowed down, the contribution of the redistribution component dropped significantly and even became negative between 2007-2010 and 2011-2014. The inequality indexes consistently show a worsening of obesity inequality from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s regardless of population subgroups, and this disproportionate shift of the BMI distribution is unlikely to be a result of a changing ethnic composition of the US population.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate that seemingly similar increases in obesity prevalence can be accompanied by very different patterns of distribution change. We find that the early phase of the obesity epidemic in the US was largely driven by increasing skewness, whereas more recent growth is a population-wide experience, regardless of demographic characteristics. Increasing morbid obesity certainly played an important role in the initial phase of the epidemic, but more recently the BMI distribution has largely horizontally shifted to the right.

A Comparison of Hypothetical Survey Rankings with Consumer Shopping Behavior

Hypothetical surveys are commonly used to elicit consumer behavior to guide product development, marketing, and labeling strategies. However, despite the prevalence of surveys in consumer food studies, previous work has not assessed the relationship between hypothetical responses and actual consumer behavior in real-world purchase situations.We explore whether attributes cited by consumers in surveys as being important to them when making decisions indeed factor into their product decision process in real-world markets. Evidence from a point of sale study of 702 pork purchasers indicates that there is a strong correspondence between hypothetical survey ratings and actual shopping behavior.

A New Look at the Economic Evaluation of Wind Energy as an Alternative to Electric and Natural Gas-Powered Irrigation

An extension of the Guerrero et al. (2010) net present value (NPV) analysis using real options analysis (ROA) is offered to improve machinery replacement decisions. Specifically, the feasibilities of replacing natural gas irrigation systems with either electric or hybrid (electric/wind) systems are evaluated. Results indicate NPVand ROA criteria can yield opposite decisions depending on the stochastic nature of the parameters, reversibility of the investment, and flexibility of investment timing. For policy, NPV results indicate that replacing natural gas with a hybrid is on the cusp of being optimal. However, ROA indicates this NPV implication may not hold.

Do Monetary Incentives Matter in Classroom Experiments? Effects on Course Performance.

Using 641 principles of economics students across four universities, the authors examine whether providing monetary incentives in a prisoners dilemma game enhances student learning as measured by a set of common exam questions. Subjects either play a two-player prisoners dilemma game for real money, play the same game with no money at stake (i.e., play a hypothetical version), or are in a control group where no game is played. The authors find strong evidence that students who played the classroom game for real money earned higher test scores than students who played the hypothetical game or where no game was played. Their findings challenge the conventional wisdom that monetary incentives are unnecessary in classroom experiments.

Estimation of Crop Yields and Insurance Premiums Using a Shrinkage Estimator

We explore the estimation of crop yields and insurance premiums using a hierarchical Bayes small area estimator. The estimator is evaluated for Area Yield Production (AYP) policy using quasi-simulated corn yields in the United States. Its performance in producing reliable mean county yield and premium estimates is compared to that of a naive estimator. We also investigate the impact of these efficiency improvements on the residual losses between a farm-level policy and AYP. The proposed estimator is found to be substantially more efficient and less biased than the naive estimator.