Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy最新文献

In 2022, U.S. consumers experienced an infant formula shortage that resulted in historic out-of-stock rates and brought renewed attention to market concentration in the infant formula market. FDA regulation, tariffs, and limiting WIC benefit redemption to a state's contract brand of infant formula, all potential barriers to competition, were temporarily relaxed to mitigate the impact of the shortage. This article discusses the potential trade-offs associated with permanent policy changes while highlighting opportunities for future research to support the development of policies to improve resiliency in the infant formula market.

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have experienced significant growth worldwide, leading to an increase in studies assessing their impact on bilateral trade flows. With the availability of disaggregated trade data, numerous studies have examined the influence of these agreements specifically on agri-food trade. However, the results of these studies exhibit heterogeneity, posing challenges for policymakers seeking to understand the effects of RTAs on agri-food trade. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis of 61 studies investigating the effects of various RTAs on agri-food trade. Using funnel asymmetric testing, our analysis reveals the presence of publication bias in the existing literature. By accounting for this bias, we found robust evidence that RTAs positively and significantly promote agri-food trade. Notably, the extent of this effect depends on the depth of economic integration within the RTA, distinguishing between customs unions and free trade agreements, as well as the classification of agri-food products as primary or processed. The ex-post effects of RTAs on agri-food trade are less pronounced when we control for both publication bias and heterogeneity, compared to controlling only for publication bias.

This paper investigates how scanner data affect demand elasticity estimates and develops methods for scientists to adapt estimated elasticities to analyses of specific policies. We conduct a meta-analysis of U.S. demand elasticities and find evidence that scanner data generate statistically different elasticities, with more elastic demand than other data types. Own-price elasticity estimates from household scanner quantity data appear to be more elastic than other quantity types. Household-level estimates using retail scanner price data, as proxies for prices, tend to be more price-elastic than other price types. These results suggest caution or adjustment when selecting elasticities for policy analysis.

Agri-food systems are important sources of rural off-farm employment, but insights on job quality are limited. We study job quality in the Peruvian horticultural sector and explore the driving forces of decent and equal work, using survey data and econometric methods. We find structural disparities in wages and job quality between men and women and between local and migrant workers, trade-offs between wage and nonwage dimensions of decent work, and sector and company differences. Our findings contest that global value chains are a catalyst for decent and equal work and underscore the importance of formalization and government regulation of employment.

The food insecurity status of a household in the United States is generally put into the categories of food secure, low food secure, or very low food secure. Substantial differences in the level of need within categories are then ignored. In response, I establish a class of food insecurity measure using the binary measure of food insecurity combined with a measure of “dollars needed to be food secure.” Using data from the 2010 to 2021 Current Population Survey, I examine whether patterns of food insecurity differ by choice of measure. The two most notable findings are, first, that changes in food insecurity are similar across measures up until 2019 when they began to diverge and, second, that while aggregate rates fell from 2010 to 2021 under all measures, groups especially vulnerable to food insecurity saw smaller declines in the food insecurity rate and increases over other measures.

We examine cover crop (CC) adoption to determine how this soil health practice has influenced agricultural non-point source pollution. We use remotely sensed data on practice adoption, and control for hydrological flow direction, weather, and land use to estimate the ex post impact of CC on total Nitrogen concentrations in surface water while controlling for pollutant spillovers from upstream. At the mean treatment level in the study area (3.2%), a 1% increase in CC adoption results in a 0.06 mg/L (2%) reduction in concentration in the study area. Results provide novel estimates based on observed data that can be compared to biophysical simulations of CC effectiveness.

This paper examines the impact of participation in direct marketing on the entire distribution of farm sales for African American (AA) operations using the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) estimator. Our analysis yields unbiased estimates of the unconditional impact of direct marketing on farm sales and reveals the heterogeneous effects that occur across the distribution of farm sales. The sales gap for AA-led operations is about 11% across all quantiles when we control for farming and marketing experience along with key features of the farm operation such as crop choice and geographic location. The relative sales gap for AA operations declines across the distribution of farm sales and actually disappears for the largest operations. The network effect that we identify is associated with a sales premium for AA-led operations relative to other operations engaged in direct marketing. Marketing experts and extension professionals can use this information to guide farmers who are considering initiating or expanding direct marketing activities.

Farmers should increasingly adopt more water-efficient irrigation technologies—such as drip irrigation—as a result of climate warming and aggravating water scarcity. We analyze how Italian farmers adapt to climate change by changing their irrigation technology mix. We apply a two-stage econometric model to data from 5876 Italian farms. We find that farmers' initial reaction to increasing temperatures is reducing their surface-irrigated fractions. When temperatures increase further, farmers switch toward more sprinkler irrigation. Our results show that farmers are not autonomously moving to drip irrigation in response to climate change, suggesting that government incentives are needed to encourage this transition.

This article evaluates the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) competitive grant funding awarded to predominately White 1862 land grant institutions (LGUs), historically Black 1890 LGUs, and non-land grant institutions. We present the historical distribution of funding for agricultural research. Much of the inquiry centers on the differential funding of the 1862 LGUs, 1890 LGUs, and non-land grant institutions. We discuss the implications for academic and community stakeholders. Results show that, on average, 1890 LGUs and non-land grant institutions receive less competitive grant funding than 1862 LGUs for the same award programs. We show that the disparity falls from 2010 to 2019.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively review the literature on the value and impact of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports and discuss theoretical issues and empirical evidence. Only a handful of studies provide direct estimates of the welfare benefits of USDA information using a rational expectations framework in storable commodity markets. Most studies examine partial evidence of welfare benefits associated with market response to USDA information. These studies include examinations of the impacts of USDA report releases on cash and futures price volatility and other market dynamics, impacts of report releases on options implied volatility, impacts of unanticipated information in USDA reports, as well as informational value, returns, and survey-based studies. We discuss the methodological and empirical contributions of these studies as well as their shortcomings and potential opportunities for future work.