Genetically modified (GM) foods have been engulfed in considerable controversy, and the early optimism has been dampened. Information issues—labeling and asymmetric information—are central to the GM-food debate. Furthermore, it is important to understand the reaction in developed countries to...

The high and rapidly rising adult obesity rates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are associated with major health risks, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and some forms of cancer; large health care costs; and premature deaths annually. For...

An agricultural household model provides the framework for modeling off-farm work participation and off-farm and on-farm work decisions of farm operators. The empirical results are obtained from fitting the econometric model to data from a large national survey. In the estimated structural...

Health, like schooling, is a form of human capital and can be expected to be positively related to labor productivity and labor supply. The production of good health and labor productivity, however, sometimes competes with an individual's lifestyle, e.g., binge drinking. In this study, an...

This paper presents one of the first systematic treatments of economic incentives in the management of academic research and major inefficiencies in common funding mechanisms. Building on well-known but unusual attributes of research whereby the research payoff is only the “"best”" of...

For a postscript copy of this paper, click <a href="/Data/isu/isu285.ps"> here. The paper examines changes in employment and wage patterns, industrial restructuring, and foreign competition that affect opportunities of recent immigrants to the non-metropolitan Midwest, especially to Iowa. The focus is on food and kindred...</a>

Replaced with revised version of paper 11/29/06.

This paper examines women’s and men’s decisions to participate in physical activity and to attain a healthy weight. These outcomes are hypothesized to be related to prices of food, drink and health care services and products, the respondent’s personal characteristics (such as education,...