Models of rational addiction suggest that obesity is consistent with time-consistent preferences. Behavioral economists maintain that addictions such as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating represent examples of present-bias in decision making that is fundamentally irrational. In this article,...

Many attribute the rise in obesity since the early 1980's to the overconsumption of fast food. A dynamic model of a different-product industry equilibrium shows that a firm with market power will price below marginal cost in a steady-state equilibrium. A spatial hedonic pricing model is used to...

Private labels, also known as store brands, are an important component of competitive strategy among multi-product retailers, as they can increase retailers’ power over suppliers in the vertical channel or facilitate horizontal differentiation among retailers. This paper seeks to identify...

Several explanations for merger activity exist for publicly traded firms, but none consider the unique aspects of cooperatives. This study develops a test for the hypothesis that cooperative consolidation occurs primarily in response to capital constraints associated with a lack of access to...

Many public programs promote diets rich in fruits and vegetables based on evidence of the derived health benefits. Still, produce consumption in the United States lags behind other nations, even its most culturally similar neighbor--Canada. This study uses a structural latent variable model to...

Despite the economic damage inflicted by a foodborne disease outbreak, firms at all points in the supply chain appear to be reluctant to invest in the necessary food safety technologies and practices. We argue that these investments are subject to both hysteretic and public good effects, and...

Economic hysteresis, the continuation of a phenomenon after its initial cause has disappeared, represents an alternative theoretical explanation for the fixed-asset problem. When a set of fixed assets includes quota licenses, hysteresis in license investment leads to distortions that have not...

Using measures of allocative, technical, and overall efficiency as indicators of a latent “"performance"” variable, and a set of farm operating ratios as indicators of the amount of effort to improve the quality of feeding, breeding, and labor productivity, we employ a...

Government-supported promotion in foreign markets may justified when market failures exist, such as spillover externalities, where promotion of one commodity positively influences exports of another, or when market uncertainties cause planning horizons to be shorter than the persistent effects...

Recent proposals to reform the federal Multiple-Peril Crop Insurance Program for specialty crops raised concerns that a higher cost for catastrophic-level coverage would significantly reduce program participation. This study estimates the demand for three levels of insurance coverage (50%, 65%,...