Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy最新文献

During the pandemic, many food retailers began offering online shopping options, primarily in reaction to rising consumer demand for such options, which was a response to supply chain disruptions and fear of contagion and food scarcity. Due to the unique attributes of online shopping, we hypothesize that for some consumers, increased utilization of online shopping may have influenced the number and types of selected food markets. We use latent class regression to analyze October 2023 survey data, finding that of consumers who have stronger food values, those who are now spending more of their budget on online shopping are more likely to shop at multiple types of food markets.

This paper uses the 1989–2021 National Agricultural Workers Survey data to provide current evidence about farm workers' wage rate determinants, focusing on workers' legal status as well as workers employment type determinants. According to the results, more years of farm work experience, higher educational attainment, paid by piece rate, legal status, higher proficiency in English, male worker, and working as a supervisor can all result in higher wage rates. While legal status has a positive impact on wage rates, it only added about a 2%–3.1% or $0.27–$0.51 per hour wage premium for authorized workers in most of the model specifications. There were structural change effects in the shadow value of legal status in 2008 and 2011, showing that the wage gap increased in the post-2008 period but has shrunk since 2011 under potential policy influences. After considering the compositional shift among demographic characteristics, employment types, types of work, and other factors, the quality-adjusted hourly earnings still more than doubled over the past three decades. California, Northwest, and Midwest regions had relatively higher wage rates than other regions.

There has been an increasing amount of funding that promotes cover crop adoption. Utilizing farmer survey data, we found that in contrast to 48% of the early cover crop adopters (10+ years) who used cost share, only 18% of the most recent adopters (<3 years) are cost share users. Compared to adopters with no cost share, those who received a cost share adopted cover crops 2–4 years earlier on average. By altering the adoption decisions of a small group of producers, cost share programs could help build adoption momentum and offer a long-term solution to sustainable agriculture.

This paper investigates the effects of the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot expansion (SNAP OPP) on SNAP households' online grocery shopping behaviors and the healthfulness of their food-at-home purchases. We explore quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of online purchasing by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of the SNAP OPP across US states. The analysis combines data on household food-at-home purchases around the time of the policy expansion with a dynamic difference-in-differences empirical strategy. The results indicate that the SNAP OPP increased the frequency of online grocery shopping, associated spending, and the healthfulness of food-at-home purchases among SNAP households.

This paper aims to describe the evolution of firm and industry strategies and to analyze detailed transaction data on the structure of the international grain trading industry. Specifically, data are developed from vessel nominations, and these were used to derive measures of concentration and determine how these change across selected geographies and commodities, as well as to identify the clusters of firms in this industry. The results provide unique documentation on the structure and concentration of the world grain trading industry. The results indicate the levels of concentration are much less than traditionally suggested; there has been growth by many new entrants making up a viable competitive fringe; the industry seems to be comprised of three clusters of firms; and generally, competition in this industry would be characterized as being “fierce.”

Labor shortages are a growing challenge for U.S. agricultural producers, but little is known about farmers' adaptation strategies. We estimate the statistical relationship between farm labor shortages and adaptation strategies among California farmers. We find that increasing wages is the most common response, followed by changes in cultivation practices, adoption of labor-saving technologies, and use of farm labor contractors. Labor shortages are associated with an increase in the probability of raising wages by 21 percentage points and changing cultivation practices by 9 percentage points. These effects are more pronounced for labor-intensive crop farmers, highlighting the need for targeted support strategies.

In Tunisia, the demand for bottled water has increased remarkably. A 2022 survey conducted in Tunis revealed that 85% of respondents preferred bottled water for drinking at home. This study aims to identify the factors influencing bottled water demand using double-hurdle and Heckman models. The results highlight water quality, household income, and the presence of infants and elderly parents as key determinants, with water quality being the most significant. The study demonstrates a clear negative correlation between tap water quality and both the likelihood and quantity of bottled water consumption. These findings suggest that the national water utility should consider investing in advanced technologies to improve tap water quality and reduce reliance on bottled water.

“Superstar firms” can be large and successful without necessarily exploiting market power over labor markets (Autor et al., Quarterly Journal of Economics 2020; 135(2):645–709). In this paper, we examine this idea in an agricultural labor market setting by studying the empirical relationship between employment surplus, which is essentially the excess of a worker's value of marginal product over their wage, and wages. We use a model of search, match, and bargaining that explains how the surplus from worker's productivity is split between workers and employers. Our estimates show that workers' mean productivity is $8.67 per hour, and they receive 24.2% of employment surplus, but both exhibit substantial heterogeneity over workers. Heterogeneity in productivity and bargaining power suggests that workers who are able to generate “a bigger pie” may also earn a larger share of it. Consistent with this notion, our analysis shows a robust positive elasticity of surplus with observed wages, implying that agricultural firms gain more (surplus) by paying their workers higher wages and not necessarily through exploitation or “winner-take-all” strategy.

This article introduces “Food Economics: Agriculture, Nutrition, and Health,” a new open access textbook that helps equip students with the skills needed to analyze complex food systems issues and contribute to a sustainable, equitable, and healthy future of food. Recognizing that students enter courses with pre-existing beliefs about food and face barriers to sustained engagement in coursework, the textbook uses analytical diagrams, data visualizations, and real-world applications to spark and keep interest. Food economics education plays an important role for cultivating a skilled workforce, promoting evidence-based policy, and bridging cultural and disciplinary divides to address food system problems.

This paper employs machine learning to determine which preferential trade agreement (PTA) provisions are relevant to agricultural trade patterns and the factors that may influence their adoption. Utilizing the three-way gravity model, we apply plug-in Lasso regularized regression to pinpoint predictive PTA provisions for agricultural trade. Our findings underscore the importance of competition policies, export taxes, intellectual property rights, capital movement, state enterprises, and technical trade barriers. Subsequently, we use Random Forests to reveal the economic, political, social, and geographic factors associated with the inclusion of those provisions in PTAs. The findings highlight the roles of contagion, governance quality, energy use, and geographic proximity. Our analysis provides new insights that can aid in formulating strategies to support agricultural trade.