This paper investigates the effect of in-store services on retail food prices, supermarket competition, and demand using fluid milk as a case study. It is shown that higher-service supermarkets charge higher milk prices essentially because of an increase in market power due to differentiation of...

Food manufacturers use health claims to signal higher product quality and attract health oriented consumers. However, consumers’ willingness to pay for health-related attributes may not be large enough to repay firms of the high costs associated with developing, certifying, and marketing such...

The increasing importance of services in industrialized economies is reflected in the relative importanceof service in product offerings at the retail level. Yet, typical economic studies accountonly for physical product attributes in models of product differentiation even when conductedwith...

This paper examines the potential benefits of introducing a new payment scheme in a sugarcane processing cooperative. Findings suggest that a use-value payment system would increase individual and total members’ net returns significantly over a sugar-based system. The proposed payment...

This article separates oligopoly-power and cost-efficiency effects of changes in industrial concentration and assesses their impact on output prices in 32 food-processing industries. Empirical results indicate that although concentration induces cost efficiency in one-third of the industries,...

This article decomposes the impact of imports on domestic price-cost margins into separate price and cost effects. Using data from 24 food-processing industries, the empirical results show that although the direct impact of imports on prices is always negative, a positive net impact on...

This article tests the Grossman-Helpman Protection for Sale model using panel data from U.S. food processing industries with endogenous protection, imports, and political organization of industries. The results support the key predictions of the model: organized industries are granted higher...

The rising obesity during the past three decades poses a severe public health challenge and spurred enormous research interests. This paper contributes to the growing literature on how obesity spreads by empirically investigating whether social norms affect soft drink consumption choices....