Close business relationships are important in the food industry. However, the introduction of electronic commerce has emerged as a fundamental challenge to these relationships. In particular, retailers who start procuring private label food products in electronic auctions risk the termination of...

This study offers an alternative to the traditional Transaction Cost Economics view of the treatment of information by viewing co-ordinated supply chains as a series of Principal-Agent relationships, and draws on Perceived Risk Theory to explain both consumer and organisational behaviour. Using...

The effects of cross-compliance depend on the strategies of participation/compliance of farmers, as well as on the ability of public administration to design appropriate mechanisms of control and sanctions. The objective of this paper is to present a reference framework for the analysis of...

This paper describes an interdisciplinary research project carried out on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture. The project combines the knowledge of food experts with decision-orientated approaches from microeconomics and the social sciences. It examines...

The paper analyses the problem of information in the cattle market, particularly as it relates to the status of animal health, and discusses ways to limit it with the view to improving social surplus. Against this background, it aims to achieve three major objectives. Firstly, it describes the...

The clear definition of property rights is not a sufficient condition to prevent congestion effects in commons. In this paper we present how interesting can be the coordination among owners in the preservation of the common good. Our approach takes into account economic dynamics and incentive...

Some food markets are dominated by high quality and standard quality segments, whereas medium quality products are almost absent. A modeling framework with asymmetric information regarding true quality of the products and the resulting lack of consumer confidence is presented. Uncertainty...

The effects of cross-compliance depend on the strategies of participation/compliance of farmers, as well as on the ability of public administration to design appropriate policy mechanisms. The objective of this paper is to present a framework for the analysis of cross-compliance under asymmetric...

We consider how to organize the processing and marketing of an agricultural product when farming costs are known only by the individual farmers. We show that when marginal costs are un-correlated, the market for …nal goods is competitive, and the market for processing is non-competitive, the...

Many conservation programs offer financial compensation to farmers in exchange for socially desired services, such as soil conservation or biodiversity protection. Realization of the conservation objective at minimum cost requires payments to just cover the extra costs incurred by each...