Three promotional branches have supported the second generation of plant-based meat, i.e., of the products that mimic the texture, the appearance, and the flavor of animal meat: protection of animal welfare, of the environment, and of consumers’ health through the reduction of animal meat consumption. The goal of this study was to understand whether consumers view plant-based meat as a way to reduce meat consumption and, in turn, benefit their health and the environment.

The present study addresses this question using a dataset that consists of house- holds’ protein purchases over time, combined with household demographic and health information. The data contain detailed information on 127,606 U.S. households’ meat purchases, along with their demographic and medical information, from 2012 to 2022. Since not every household in the panel responded to the health survey, a separate analysis was conducted for the households which provided this information.

Two econometric approaches are used in this study: a double-hurdle model and an Almost Ideal Demand System for proteins with a censored regression. The first approach breaks a household’s decision to consume a product into two processes (“hurdles”): the decision to participate, and, conditional on participating, the decision of how much to consume. The second model sheds light on the substitution patterns between the plant- based meat and the animal proteins.

Results from this study show a clear upward trend on the market availability of plant-based alternatives. However, even in the most recent years, where the sales of these products have reached their peak, their share in stores is less than 5% of the total meat products and their price is consistently the highest of all proteins throughout years. The vast majority of households are nonconsumers of plant-based meat and, although this percentage is decreasing over time, 80% of the panel households did not purchase any plant-based meat product up to 2022.

From the consumption patterns across years it is evident that the adoption of plant- based meat does signify a household’s intention to reduce meat consumption overall. The households that permanently adopted plant-based meat over the years reduced meat consumption by 10% and increased seafood consumption by 13%. Overall, the expenditure on proteins (plant-based meat included) increased by 29% which implies that households increased the variety of proteins with plant-based meat but did not fully replace an animal protein with it.

The key results from the double hurdle model estimation suggest that only about one-third of the household panelists considered participation in the plant-based meat mar- ket segment. The estimated average share willing to consider plant-based meat varied from 25% to 36% with an average of 29%. The analysis showed that the prices of substiute proteins had a positive effect on the plant-based meat segment participation decision, but the price of plant-based meat itself tended to have little effect on participation. Education of the primary shopper was a strong positive determinant of participation, and consumers who expressed concern about food and pursued an ingredient-conscious diet were significantly more likely to participate in the plant-based meat segment.

In terms of the second hurdle, the expenditure decision, the price of plant-based meat is consistently negatively correlated with expenditure, but the effect is not always statistically significant. The prices of the protein substitutes tend to be more significant determinants of expenditure on plant-based meat. The price of beef in particular is consistently and significantly associated with higher expenditure on plant-based meat. Household income is also significantly associated with higher plant-based meat consumption in the full panel. Demographic variables that play a consistent role in explaining plant-based meat expenditure include having a female primary shopper, having a more highly educated primary shopper, having household members who express concerns about health and who pursue an ingredient-conscious diet. Conversely household size does not tend to have a consistent and significant impact, nor do the politics of the state of residence or the age of the primary shopper. Finally, households experiencing health problems tend to spend less on plant-based meat, other factors constant.

The censored regression model yielded estimation results that complement the results from the double hurdle model. Results of this estimation revealed that all five of the proteins studied in this analysis have near unitary expenditure elasticities, meaning that as household expenditures on proteins increases, expenditures on each protein rise in a nearly proportional manner. Plant-based meat demand was price inelastic in both the main sample and health-survey sample, but the demand was more elastic (indeed, near unit elastic) for the health-survey panel, suggesting some fundamental differences in behavior for the subgroup that chose to provide health information relative to the full panel.

Compensated and uncompensated cross-price elasticities differed considerably due to strong income effects for all proteins in the system except plant-based meat. Estimated cross-price effects for the traditional proteins were consistent with prior meat demand studies. Importantly, results indicated that plant-based meat and beef are net complements based upon the compensated (Hicksian) cross-price elasticities, a finding at odds with the common belief that plant-based meat can become a significant substitute for beef in consumers’ diets, thereby leading to reduced methane emissions and other harmful environmental effects associated with cattle production. This finding is consistent with Zhao et al. (2022) and may indicate that plant-based meat products are consumed by some members in the household and beef by others while they are both served at the same meal. An increase in the price of beef reduces the amount of beef consumed by the household and, in turn, this affects the quantity of plant-based meat consumed. This finding casts major doubt on what appears to be an article of faith among those who believe plant-based meats can cause consumers to substitute away from animal meats.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of promotions conducted by the Haas Avocado Board

Farming has an elevated rate of suicide in the U.S. and elsewhere, which draws attention to the mental well-being of farmers and other agricultural workers. There is a rich empirical and conceptual literature exploring the reasons behind the high rate of farmer suicide. Yet little rigorous study addresses the determinants of farmer suicide in the U.S. This study explores a number of hypotheses as to causal factors explaining the high farmer suicide rate, including weather factors (e.g., extreme temperatures, variable precipitation) and economic factors such as price and income volatility. A theoretical model is developed linking the weather and economic factors to a farmer’s suicide decision. A farmer chooses between work effort and leisure, a level of consumption, levels of production inputs, and the amount of savings to maximize her utility given her budget constraint and time endowment. In a static model, a bad weather shock can have a "snowballing" effect that reduces farm income and also reduces utility from leisure and health through the work-leisure trade-off. Severe adverse weather outcomes can possibly diminish a farmer's utility and cause a spontaneous decision to commit suicide in extreme cases. Based on the model, we hypothesize that the marginal effect of harmful weather on farmer suicide is positive. Successive realization of bad weather and chronic poor economic conditions are positively associated with farmer suicide.

We combine the CDC nonpublic vital statistics, PRISM daily weather data, and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service data as a county-year panel to estimate the marginal effects of weather and economic factors on farmer suicides. Empirical analysis, based upon a Poisson regression model with agricultural district fixed effects, shows extreme heat is positively associated with farmer suicides. There is no clear evidence of the effect of precipitation on farmer suicide in counties without irrigation. Chronic, not idiosyncratic, poor economic conditions induce farmer suicide. The results are robust to alternative specifications including or excluding year fixed effects.

This dissertation draws on theories of product differentiation from industrial organization and on agricultural economics, more broadly, to study the effect of information on consumer and producer behavior as it relates to agricultural commodities and food products. Agricultural markets are rife with information asymmetries, as complex production practices and modern supply chains and retail systems can obfuscate information about how and where products are produced and the health implications from consuming them. As a result, downstream actors rarely have perfect information about the food they are purchasing, and regulators often face difficulties tracing foodborne illnesses back to the source. The first essay examines the impact of introducing a government certification and labeling program for transitional organic crops on organic and conventional markets. Premiums garnered by transitional labels may reduce conversion costs and increase conversion, but some existing organic producers worry it may dilute the value of the existing organic label. I construct static and dynamic models of vertical product differentiation to explore how transitional certification and commensurate labeling impacts prices and market shares for conventional and organic versions of a generic commodity, and, in turn, organic conversion rates. I index consumers' valuation of the high-quality commodity (i.e., organic) using a flexible Kumaraswarmy distribution instead of the uniform distribution typically used in these types of models, as consumers valuation of quality may vary by commodity and over time. I then estimate outcomes for the domestic strawberry market by assigning values to the model parameters using data obtained from a survey developed in collaboration with a major berry producer and relevant prior research. Results from the static model indicate that, in the short run, transitional certification and labeling slightly decrease prices for organic strawberries, do not alter conventional prices, and improve or hold constant welfare for all consumers. In the long run, transitional labeling significantly increases the share of acreage devoted to organic strawberries, holding total strawberry acreage constant, and subsequently increases prices for both organic and conventional strawberries. The price increase is because the yield gap between conventional and organic strawberries leads to a reduction in total strawberry output as more acres convert. The increased prices benefit strawberry producers but come at the expense of strawberry consumers. These results suggest that a national transitional certification policy may be a useful tool in increasing domestic commodity production.

Essay 2 analyzes the economic losses resulting from the November, 2018 food safety advisory that warned consumers, retailers, and restaurants not to eat, sell, or serve any romaine lettuce or mixed salads containing romaine due to an outbreak of E. coli infections linked to romaine. Detected outbreaks including the one studied here are usually characterized by uncertainty and lack of information as to the scope of implicated products and regions, which often results in broad advisories and widespread damages. I separately estimate losses to growers, processor/shippers, retailers, and food-service operators, in addition losses to society, during and after the advisory period using wholesale data from a cooperating processor that supplies both food-service and retail outlets combined that with public data on spot-market prices and movement provided by the USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service and retail scanner data from the Nielsen Company. I then use regression analysis to predict what prices and sales would have been in the ``but for'' world absent the E. coli advisory, compare these values to the real-world prices and quantities during the advisory period and aftermath for romaine and its substitutes, and compute economic impacts from price changes and lost sales. Due to the structure of grower contracts, growers were minimally impacted by the advisory, while processors and shippers lost approximately \$52.7 million from price and quantity impacts. Retailers amassed \$25.7 million in losses mostly due to pulling product from their distribution channels and shelves in response to the advisory. Conversely, food-service operators were little impacted. I further estimate that societal losses from the Fall 2018 incident were in the range of \$280 to \$350 million. The third essay evaluates consumers' stated and revealed preference for locally produced food products using both a survey and a market-level labeling experiment. The survey, distributed by two Sacramento-area food co-ops, assessed differences in willingness-to-pay (WTP) and intensity of preference for local produce and processed foods and examined which characteristics consumers associate with a ``Local'' label. For the labeling experiment, I introduced ``Local'' shelf labels to products in five processed-food categories in one of these stores for four weeks. Both stores provided weekly sales data by UPC for four weeks prior to, during, and after the experiment, and I further collected detailed information on product claims, product placement, and promotions for each product. The vast majority of shoppers at both stores expressed a preference for locally produced produce and processed foods and indicated they would be willing to pay a premium for them. These preferences, however, did not carry forward to increased sales for products affixed with a ``Local'' label in the retail experiment. An analysis of the sales data in a triple-triple difference framework fails to detect significant average treatment effects. Significant heterogeneous treatment effects suggest that the experimental labels primarily draw attention to or highlight products at the point of purchase, and might be more effective for products that do not already capture consumers' attention through manufacturer's claims, retailer discounts, or prime shelf-positioning.

Taken together, the research in this dissertation provides valuable insights on when the provision of information might help advance policy goals and when it might fall short in that regard. Further, it illustrates how imprecise and overly broad information, like that provided many initial food safety advisories, can generate far-reaching economic losses.

With obesity rates at epidemic levels in the United States, some public health advocates and policy makers have turned to soda taxes as a way to curb soda consumption. A number of U.S. cities, motivated by health-related or fiscal considerations, have implemented or are considering soda taxes that vary by enactment process, scope, and magnitude. These excise taxes are imposed on sugar-sweetened sodas and non-carbonated drinks such as sport drinks, fruit drinks, and iced teas. In some jurisdictions beverages sweetened with artificial sweeteners are also taxed. This study examines how current soda taxes affect the price and volume sales of soda products and related products. In particular, this study explores not only the short-run effects, but also the long-run effects, an important aspect missing in the literature. I also explore the heterogeneity in the impact across product category and package size, and how responses vary among retailers based on their types. Regressivity is a hotly debated topic surrounding an excise tax. This study investigates whether the tax burdens fall more heavily on the relatively poor and ethnic diverse neighborhoods. I additionally explore whether geographic proximity to neighboring untaxed stores alters the pricing behavior of retailers, as well as their soda sales. Finally, I compare the results among current tax policies and further evaluate their effectiveness. In the empirical work, I mainly use a large national IRI scanner data and employ both a Difference-in-Differences approach and a Triple-Difference approach to estimate the effects of soda taxes. Results suggest that soda taxes in all taxed jurisdictions had a significantly positive impact on the price of taxed beverages, with pass-through rates less than 100%, and retailers raised prices gradually over time, rather than pass on the tax all at once. These results indicate that the estimates of the impact of soda taxes based on short-term data might be under stated. The pass-through rates of soda taxes that were passed through a council budget vote are larger than those of taxes that were passed through public referendum. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the massive media campaigns before an election can draw consumers’ attention to the tax and to avoid losing sales, retailers choose not to raise the price significantly in the immediate aftermath. Moreover, the volume sales of soda drinks in Oakland, San Francisco, and Boulder did not decline due to soda taxes, and Berkeley’s soda sales did not drop until the fourth year. The main goal of soda taxes enacted by these jurisdictions is to curb soda consumption, and the insignificant consumption effects suggest that establishing soda taxes by public vote may not succeed in achieving the goal of improving public health. Results also suggest that consumers did not switch to untaxed and healthier beverages in response to soda taxes; they may drive across the city border and purchase sodas in neighboring untaxed stores. In Philadelphia, there is evidence that the sales reduction of taxable beverages was larger in stores near the city border than in those farther away from the border. Given the possibility that the nearby stores of a taxed city can be indirectly affected, future research on soda taxes should be cautious about using them as controls in the empirical analysis. The impact of soda taxes exhibited huge heterogeneity across store characteristics and product characteristics. Results show that large retailers passed on a smaller proportion of the tax to consumers than small retailers as they may risk losing all profits from consumers’ shopping baskets if they raise the price by a large percentage and cause consumers to shop elsewhere, e.g., in untaxed jurisdictions. The pattern of the heterogeneous impact across products also varies by store type. For example, the pass-through rate for large bottles of sodas was greater than that for small bottles at large retailers, while small retailers saw the opposite result. These findings suggest that different types of stores adopt different pricing strategies and consider cross-product relationships when responding to the soda tax. Therefore, it is necessary for future research to analyze at a disaggregated level, or at least distinguish between store types. Soda taxes might be regressive in relatively large jurisdictions and the results for soda sales suggest that the soda taxes might be less effective at reducing soda consumption among low-income households who tend to purchase more sodas and are more adversely affected by obesity. The tax burdens are also shown to fall more heavily on racially diverse neighborhoods. This study provides insights on how retailers’ responses to soda taxes can vary across different dimensions, and how soda taxes of varying scope and objective can differ in terms of the effects and effectiveness. With more jurisdictions considering an introduction of soda tax, the findings of this study provide important implications for future tax design.

This study evaluates the economic impacts of advertising and promotion expenditures funded under the almond marketing order. Over the crop years 1962/63 through 1997/98, the correlation of industry promotion and demand was positive and statistically significant. Almond advertising has yielded marginal benefits between $3 and $10 per dollar spent. The 1994/95 through 1996/97 suspension of the promotion program reduced grower profits in the range of $88 million to $231 million during the suspension period.

Beef cattle remain one of California’s most important agricultural products, ranking fifth in 2001 at $1.35 billion in value of production, behind dairy, grapes, nursery products and lettuce. However, technological change, coupled with declining consumption of red meats during the 1970s and 1980s, triggered a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the beef-processing sector. To evaluate how such trends are affecting the industry in Calif-ornia, we undertook a survey during 2000 and 2001 and obtained responses from ranchers in 40 counties. Our results confirm that the industry appears to be at a crossroads, for a variety of reasons. Cow-calf ranching operations now predominate, and a significant percentage of cattle leave the state for feeding and slaughter. Auction yards, a principal marketing outlet for most of the survey respondents, require a large volume of activity in order to operate efficiently. As aging ranchers exit the business, this important exchange mechanism is threatened, possibly contributing to the industry’s further decline. Most ranchers reported having five or fewer potential buyers for their cattle.

The New Rural Social Pension Insurance (NRSPI) is the largest multi-pillar pension program in the world, providing comprehensive support for the rapidly increasing senior population in China. Any rural resident contributing at or beyond the minimum level for at least 15 years is eligible for NRSPI benefits after turning 60 years old. Incorporating both the social pension (basic pension) and the voluntary pension (individual account pension) components gives NRSPI its own unique identity among public pension programs. This dissertation sheds light on the determinants of individuals’ participation decisions and the effects of NRSPI on the participants’ behaviors such as private savings and personal consumption across life stages. Additionally, this dissertation provides insights into how individuals’ NRSPI participation, private savings, and consumption behaviors are likely to vary across both key demographic characteristics and program parameters, thereby providing suggestions for how the government can efficiently achieve policy objectives.

Utilizing a three-period decision model with income uncertainty, I show that life expectancy plays an important role in an individual’s decision to participate in NRSPI; not surprisingly, individuals with greater life expectancy are more likely to participate. In the absence of subsidies, no individual would contribute for more than 15 years, which is the minimum requirement to be eligible to receive pension benefits. I show that, although NRSPI contributions crowd out private savings, the program raises total lifetime consumption and, as such, NRSPI has the potential to alleviate rural poverty in China. Comparative static analysis indicates that individuals in different NRSPI participation regimes react to changes of policy parameters heterogeneously. When uncertainty about life expectancy is introduced into the model, decision-making becomes more complicated, but most qualitative results are consistent with the certainty case.

Based on the conceptual model, I conduct a simulation analysis by randomly drawing 1,000 individuals with characteristics drawn from distributions reflective of the reality in rural China. Simulation results indicate that NRSPI, as designed, is an attractive program because the predicted participation rate under current values of policy parameters is significantly higher than actual participation rates in rural China. These results suggest that the government could increase investment in education and outreach campaigns about NRSPI in order to narrow the gap between predicted and actual participation rates. Results also show that the participation rate is quite sensitive to the size of the monthly basic pension payment and the minimum total contribution, while the average contribution responds strongly to the policy-specified life span after turning 60 years old and the interest rate paid on NRSPI contributions.

The crowding out and poverty-alleviating effects derived in the conceptual framework are confirmed and quantified through the simulation model, and I further demonstrate that these effects mainly result from the basic pension component of NRSPI. From the perspective of the Chinese government, high levels of specified life span and NRSPI interest rate, and low levels of monthly basic pension payment and minimum total contribution are the most efficient way to reduce net government expenditure and maintain a high participation rate.

Results also show that increased central government support to poorer provinces would allow local governments to increase the size of the basic pension payments and reduce the currently large regional heterogeneity in participation rates. A matching subsidy has little effect on participation rates but effectively enhances the average contribution level. Moreover, the government may consider increasing the maximum contribution level since results show a portion of residents would benefit from contributing more than the maximum after turning 45 years old.

This dissertation builds the first comprehensive conceptual framework to analyze the NRSPI and, as such, can be useful in guiding future empirical analysis of the program. By grounding the simulation analysis in data reflective of the rural Chinese context, the results and policy recommendations that emerge from this analysis should be useful to the Chinese government as it seeks to improve the performance of NRSPI in the future.