Health disparities are abundantly recorded in literature, but is much less understood within a rural-urban context. In this paper, four major diseases in Virginia are studied: cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease (heart disease) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Separate count...

Improvement in maternal health care is at the center stage of policy making for many developing countries including India, which is faced with a high maternal mortality rate of 540 deaths per 100,000 live births. In India, 36% of women are underweight and an important policy question is whether...

Schools have significant influence on children’s health making health interventions targeting schools more likely to succeed such as the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP). A key question that this literature currently concentrates on is to what extent do...

Farmland loss is considered a serious problem by the public, and it is in part addressed by government initiatives to preserve farmland through the use of conservation easement programs. In order to prioritize which tracts are protected with these programs, it is important to understand and...

The current Food Stamp Program uses fixed benefit payments that do not provide incentives for participants to improve their nutrient intake. This paper examines an alternative contract using a transfer that increases with expenditures on high nutrient foods as a way to increase nutrient intake...

Food demand is an important component of the agricultural sector and much food preparation occurs in the home. While there is much information about the market cost of food, there has been no information about the preparation cost of food at home because there has been no data available on the...

Nutritional value is an important attribute of foods whose benefits can only be experienced by repetitive consumption in long run. Consumers’ knowledge about the importance and usefulness of specific nutrients in a food product may influence their subjective expectation of the product’s...

Experimental Economics methods are used to determine Hispanic consumers’ sensory acceptance of pasture-fed beef and evaluate visual and taste influences on their overall preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP). Two hundred and thirty-one Hispanic consumers in four experimental sites in...

"Pouring rights" contracts between soft drink companies and schools have created substantial controversy. Treating the issue as externality problem, we analyze the Pigouvian tax solution and propose a contract between the government and schools to provide an incentive compatible method for...