Selected Paper presented at the 57th annual conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Sydney, February 5-8, 2013.

Many commentators have claimed that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the ―obesity epidemic‖ by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant and, symmetrically, that taxing ―unhealthy‖ commodities or subsidizing ―healthy‖ commodities would contribute to...

Since 2000, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), has spent approximately $40 million per year to contain and control the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (GWSS), which spreads Pierce’s Disease (PD). Compliance with the program has cost the nursery industry approximately $7...

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the cornerstone of the U.S. federal income and food safety net policy. The FSP has subsidized the food budget for millions of American households for over forty years, spending more than $60 billion per...

How much has food abundance, attributable to U.S. public agricultural R&D, contributed to the high and rising U.S. obesity rates? In this paper we investigate the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D on food prices, per capita calorie consumption, adult body weight, obesity, public...

How much has food abundance, attributable to U.S. public agricultural R&D, contributed to the high and rising U.S. obesity rates? In this paper we investigate the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D on food prices, per capita calorie consumption, adult body weight, obesity, public...

Food away from home (FAFH) comprises nearly half of all U.S. consumer food expenditures. Hence, policies designed to influence nutritional outcomes would be incomplete if they did not address the role of FAFH. However, because of data limitations, most studies of the response of food demand to...

Many commentators have speculated that agricultural policies have contributed to increased obesity rates in the United States, yet such claims are often made without any analysis of the complex links between real-world farm commodity support programs, prices and consumption of foods, and caloric...