In many ways, the modern market for food exemplifies the economist’s conception of perfect competition, with many buyers, many sellers, and a robust and dynamic marketplace. But over the course of the last century, the U.S. has witnessed a dramatic shift away from traditional diets and toward...

Retail and wholesale gasoline prices vary over time and across geographic locations due to differences in government policies and other factors that affect demand, costs, and market power. We use a two-equation, reduced-form model to determine the relative importance of these various factors...

In an attempt to improve the nation's health, many U.S. policy makers have or are considering imposing taxes on the fat in food. Dairy products constitute a large portion of at home fat consumption of particularly harmful types of fat, and nearly all U.S. households consume these products. We...

Coal-bed methane is an emerging contributor to the US energy supply. Split estates, where landowners control the surface and the energy companies lease the rights to the underground gas from the federal government, often impede successful negotiations for methane extraction. We provide an...

We examine factors affecting entry and contribution to an association that provides different goods using social capital formed by heterogeneous firms in a political economy environment. We model and solve a game that explains investments to form social capital within associations and determine...

The objective of this report is to take stock of the activities, motivations, impacts and challenges faced by the farms in Washington as they relate to agritourism and direct marketing. We characterize the agritourism entrepreneurship and direct marketing activities in different counties of the...

The objective of this report is to take stock of the activities, motivations, impacts and challenges faced by the farms in Washington as they relate to agritourism and direct marketing. We characterize the agritourism entrepreneurship and direct marketing activities in different counties of the...

A simple experiment is used to examine the effect of grocery store nutrition labels on the sales of microwave popcorn in the East Bay area of California. Using an incomplete demand system we estimate the impact of the nutrition labels on sales of healthy (products that merit a nutrition label)...

Nutrition labels can potentially benefit consumers by increasing product knowledge and reducing search costs. However, the global increase in obesity rates leads one to question the effectiveness of current nutrition information formats. Alternative formats for providing nutrition information...

We determine the effects of product quality on the value of net trade for developed and developing countries. By incorporating the intensity of consumers’ preferences for quality, we can identify different quality impacts on net trade as product quality may affect prices and preferences. Using...