The proposed paper belongs to the literature on food demand and optimal taxation and to the literature dealing with economics of alcohol production and consumption. We investigate the question of optimal taxation for the commodity whose consumption has positive and negative features both for...

Choices in production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services were studied using data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities from Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Results suggest the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with...

Dichotomous choice willingness to pay questions are often used to determine the value visitors place on nature-based recreation. Ambiguity in wording can result in the use of information that does not necessarily reflect visitors’ true WTP. For example, depending on the specificity of the...

We quantify the impact of network-based learning and influence on measures of female power and child nutrition in rural India. Empowering women to have greater say in child rearing may generate greater and more lasting benefits to children than nutrition supplementation. While researchers have...

2010 AAEA Presidential Address; forthcoming in January 2011 AJAE in shortened version.

Price search enables consumers to overcome information asymmetries, it can lead to a reduction in price dispersion and it can increase consumer surplus, but search is costly. In this paper, an internet survey is conducted among a random sample of 490 drivers in the State of Ohio to answer the...

In order to reduce obesity and associated costs, policymakers are considering various policies, including taxes, to change consumers’ high-calorie consumption habits. We investigate two sweet tax policies aimed at reducing added sweetener consumption. Both a consumption tax on sweet goods and...