We econometrically estimate consumer demand for dairy products in Japan using time series data for 1960-2003. We identify economic, cultural, and demographic forces that have been influencing dairy consumption patterns. We use the Almost Ideal (AI) Demand System by Deaton and Muellbauer and its...

We introduce an easily implemented and flexible calibration technique for partial demand systems, combining recent developments in incomplete demand systems and a set of restrictions conditioned on the available elasticity estimates. The technique accommodates various degrees of knowledge on...

We extend the existing literature on food taxes targeting obesity. First, we incorporate the implicit substitution between sugar and fat nutrients implied by a complete food demand system and by conditioning on how food taxes affect total calorie intake. Second, we propose a methodology that...

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...

Using urban household-level survey data from 1992 to 1998, we provide estimates of final demand for edible vegetable oils and animal fats in three regions of China based on the LinQuad incomplete demand system. For each region, the demand for the major "staple" oil is price inelastic. The demand...

This paper presents promising methodologies for modeling and quantifying nontariff barriers (NTB) to trade in the agricultural and food sectors. We limit the analysis to sanitary, phytosanitary, and technical regulations that can have an impact on trade and to methods that provide some...

We analyze the impact of trade liberalization, removal of production subsidies, and elimination of consumption distortions in world sugar markets using a partial-equilibrium international sugar model calibrated on 2002 market data and current policies. The removal of trade distortions alone...

The double-dividend debate evolves around the possibility (or not) of substituting environmental taxes for more distortionary taxes to reduce both pollution degradation and/or damages (the first dividend) and the excess burden of existing taxes (the second dividend), without eroding tax...

We analyze the potential impact of continuing the existing U.S. sugar program, replacing it with a standard program, and implementing the standard program with multilateral trade liberalization. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), duty-free sugar imports from Mexico will...

This paper provides a formal analysis of the welfare and trade implications of eco-labeling schemes. A simple model of vertical (quality) differentiation captures major stylized features of the textiles market in which trading takes place between an industrialized North (domestic) and a...