Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
RETAIL FOOD PRICES, SHOPPING BEHAVIOR, HEALTH, AND THE FOOD ENVIRONMENT
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1003149
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jul 1, 2014
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2019
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
208 MUELLER LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802
Performing Department
Agri Economics, Sociology & Education
Non Technical Summary
Chronic health problems, such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease have become major health concerns in the United States in recent decades. Twenty percent of adults in the U.S. currently have heart disease, and 25% have hypertension (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). According to National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), more than one-third of U.S. adults, and one-sixth of children aged 2-19 were obese in 2010. A staggering one in three children born today will develop diabetes in their lifetime (CDC, 2010).Uncountable medical and health studies strongly link diet to these chronic health problems. In the key recommendations listed in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in 2010, the USDA and FDA suggest that people in the U.S. should increase intake of whole grain, dietary fiber, and reduce consumption of refined grains (USDA/FDA, 2010). In response to the maturation and findings of medical, nutritional, and epidemiological, medical associations and policy institutions have reversed their positions with respect to recommendations of dietary fatty acid intake. The formerly accepted fat hypothesis--dietary fat causes metabolic syndrome--as opposed to the carbohydrate hypothesis, has been roundly rejected by the scientific community (Taubes, 2007). The Harvard School of Public Health prominently avers, "It's time to end the low-fat myth." Despite this broad and deep knowledge linking food, diet, and health, and the accompanying recommendations, obesity and other poor health outcomes continue to affect a growing number of Americans. Diet choice accounts for 1.4 million preventable American deaths per year.In summary, despite the advantage of nutritional and medical knowledge far advanced of that available just decades ago, children born today in the U.S. have a lower life expectancy than their parents, in large part due to less healthful diets. Why is there such a large disconnect between consumer food choice and dietary recommendations? What policy instruments will be most effective in facilitating preferable health outcomes? In short, what is motivating consumers to make unhealthful food choices, and what will it take get Americans to eat better?A wide range of current research focuses on the hypothesis that health outcomes (including obesity rates) are mediated by the economics of food choice. To be clear, a wide range of interrelated economic and demographic factors are believed to affect consumers' food decisions, including prices, product offerings, marketing signals, the retail-level food environment, community-level attributes, and socio-economic characteristics of the individual households. The advent of micro-level data on food purchase behavior, often linked to information on consumers' demographics and the surrounding food environment, has enabled substantial economic and social science research on many of these interrelated factors. This project will leverage household-level food purchase data to investigate how consumers and food retailers interact in the market place, how these interactions are affected by socioeconomic factors, and how these interactions are related to consumer health.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
70%
Applied
30%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
6036299301020%
6046299301010%
6076020301020%
6096020301010%
6096299301010%
7036020301030%
Knowledge Area
703 - Nutrition Education and Behavior; 603 - Market Economics; 607 - Consumer Economics; 609 - Economic Theory and Methods; 604 - Marketing and Distribution Practices;

Subject Of Investigation
6020 - The family and its members; 6299 - Marketing, general/other;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;
Goals / Objectives
Goal 1 Investigate interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information.Objective 1.1 Measure the impact of particular product attributes, including health-related attributes and organic attributes, on retail-level food prices.Objective 1.2 Determine how health-related product attributes interact with price to affect consumer purchase behavior.Objective 1.3 Measure the effect of information, such as that communicated through labels and media, on the demand for food and nutrients.Goal 2 Investigate interrelationships of the food environment and consumers' socio-demographic information, especially as they involve consumers' food purchase behavior and health.Objective 2.1 Determine how socio-demographic variables affect food purchase behavior and health.Objective 2.2 Model retailers' marketing choices and how they affect consumer food environments.Objective 2.3 Model and measure how consumer food shopping decisions (e.g.,frequency, store choice, loyalty) relate to household characteristics, the food environment, and food choices.
Project Methods
Methods to Address Objective 1.1 - Retail-Level Pricing. Two approaches will be used to investigate price, and the methodological choice will largely depend on how large a role market power has on pricing. For cases where market power may play a small role, our investigation into how pricing relates to product attributes will rely on hedonic price models (Rosen 1974). Using data observations on prices and individual product characteristics, and assuming that the product market is in equilibrium, an estimated hedonic pricing model will be used to recover the contribution that an individual product attribute has on price. In other words, we can estimate the contribution that an organic attribute, or a health related attribute such as "low-fat," has on a product's price.For cases where market power plays a large role, we will estimate equilibrium models of the supply and demand for products, and specifically account for firms' strategic behavior on the supply side. This method requires that price variables be treated as exogenous in the demand side (where demand is modeled either as a discrete product choice or as a continuous quantity or expenditure share). It also requires that strategic pricing behavior is simultaneously estimated on the supply side. Theoretically consistent examples of these approaches include Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995), Nevo (2000), Pinkse and Slade (2004), and Petrin and Train (2010).Methods to Address Objective 1.2 - Health-Related Product Attributes and Consumer Behavior. Estimating consumer demand (and related purchasing behavior) that accounts for product attributes is very feasible with discrete-choice demand models and other econometric methods. Discrete choice models that map consumers' purchase decisions from product space to characteristic are relatively standard approaches for cases where consumers choose only one unit of the product at a time (Nevo, 2001; Drichoutis et al., 2005; Chidmi and Lopez, 2007; Chowdhury, 2011). Alternatively, Pinkse, Slade, and Brett's (2002) distance-metric method, applied to consumer demand by Rojas (2008) and Rojas and Peterson (2008) frames a product-attribute approach within a relatively standard LA/AIDS (Deaton and Muellbauer, 1980). Both methods can accommodate market-level and household-level data.Methods to Address Objective 2.1 - Effect of Food Environment on Food Behavior and Health. For the most part, our investigation into the relationship between the food environment on food behavior and health will rely on non-structural econometric models that investigate factors from multiple levels - the individual level, the household level, and the community or regional level. When health outcome data are available, a good example of this sort of modeling effort is Powell et al. (2007a). Alternatively, when health outcome data are unavailable, Volpe and Okrent (2012) is a good example. In all cases, methodological care must be taken to control for confounding factors. For example, the decision of what food to buy is related to the decision of which store to choose.Methods to Address Objective 2.2 - Marketing Choices and the Food Environment. Investigations that address the previous objective (2.1) sometimes have difficulty establishing causality because it is hard to isolate food store decisions from consumer decisions. For example, some studies observe that obesity rates are higher when the density of fast-food restaurants is higher. However, claims of causality are devastated by the possibility that fast-food restaurants choose to locate where obesity rates are higher. Our investigation of objective 2.2 attempts to directly account for food stores' (marketing) choices. For the most part, this accounting means that both the consumer side (demand) and the food retailer side (supply) need to be simultaneously modeled. Good examples of equilibrium modeling that accounts for both the demand and supply side are Ellickson (2007) and Ellickson and Grieco (2013). Using this equilibrium approach as a starting point, we plan to extend the use of Pinkse, Slade, and Brett's (2002) distance-metric method that bases consumer demand and food store supply on relative distance in attribute space. This extension from the product market equilibrium to a food store equilibrium would involve a substantial contribution to the field of economics.Methods to Address Objective 2.3 - Shopping Decisions. Since food choice, shopping timing, and store choice are determined simultaneously, empirical structural modeling techniques such as three stage least squares (3SLS) will be used to account for the endogeneity of households' decisions. In contrast to the methods described above that are designed to account for the simultaneity inherent in aggregate level market equilibria, household level simultaneity models rely on microeconometric techniques (see Wooldridge 2012; Cameron and Trivedi, 2005). Emphasis will be placed on controlling for the effects of household heterogeneity. This will be possible by using rich household or consumer level data.Since much of the cost of grocery shopping is "lost" time, calculation of household time allocation may prove useful. For example, Aguiar and Hurst (2005) couple time use survey data with Nielsen HomeScan data to answer questions related to household production, food consumption over the lifecycle, and search costs. Similar methodology can be applied to American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, which includes variables that represent the time households spend grocery shopping, traveling to grocery stores, preparing food for consumption, and a myriad of other activities. Furthermore, households in ATUS can be linked to Eating and Health (EH) and Well-Being (WB) modules that include physical and psychological health information. These data can be used to measure shopping frequency (thereby corroborating previous results), and probe its effects on food choice and health outcomes.The theoretical interplay between shopping frequency and food choice will be developed in at least two ways. First, the optimal control theory model developed in Colby (2012) will be extended to a two-good model. Second, an aggregate model will be developed by adapting Barten's (1964) method for modifying demand systems using equivalence scales (see also Pollak and Wales, 1981) to "equivalent consumption" due to food deterioration. Such a technique will allow for imputation of the real prices of consumption as a function of shopping frequency and deterioration rates, in contrast to the typical implicit assumption that market prices reflect the cost of consumption.Evaluation Success of the project will be measured by (i) the quality of scholarly journals accept articles for publication, (ii) the number of articles that are published, and (iii) the number of graduate students who obtain training within the project and the quality of the work.

Progress 07/01/14 to 06/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project (which has not changed) is researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Additionally, when our results have broader implications, we will also target policy makers and other stakeholders in the food and health field. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Three Ph.D. students, Zefeng Dong (2019), Roozbeh Irani-Kermani (2018), and Xuan Chen (2020 expected), have contributed to this research project under the supervision of Jaenicke and Liu. In addition, two M.S. students, Jingjing Shu (2018) and Rashmit Arora (2019) also worked on this project. This project exposed these Ph.D. and M.S. students to state-of-the art research training that featured weekly conferences with faculty supervisors. One student (Chen), is a co-author on a peer-reviewed publication in the top field journal, Food Policy. Two other students (Irani-Kermani and Arora) have papers currently under review at other journals. The three Ph.D. students all presented work at professional meetings and annual research conferences. Overall, the project was instrumental in these students' professional development. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated to target audiences by publishing in peer-reviewed journals. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This project terminated at the end of June 2019.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1: Organic price premiums, organic agriculture, and organic trade: Findings in an Agribusiness article show that organic prices at the retail level generate a substantial premium for organic products, and that the organic price premium is general not diminishing. A follow-up USDA Economic Research Service report written with an USDA-ERS co-author investigates organic premiums for additional retail products. The project team also investigated the level of organic food exports and imports from and to the U.S. Findings suggest that exports are strongly increasing, whereas imports have mixed results. We also examined organic trade to investigate the impact of the 2012 bilateral organic equivalency arrangement between the European Union and the United States, the two largest organic markets in the world. Employing the newly available USDA Global Agricultural Trade System (GATS) data on organic trade, we collectively analyze 23 products of U.S. organic exports during the 2011-2014 period. We find that the policy generates an increase of 9.1% in the organic exports to the European Union each quarter. These results are described in more detail in an Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy paper. Findings in the Marasteanu and Jaenicke Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems paper show that the presence of an organic "hotspots" leads to improved economic conditions at local level. For example, counties in an organic hotspot have higher median household incomes and lower poverty rates than counties who are in many ways comparable except that they are not in an organic hotspot. Findings in Yu, Campbell, Liu and Martin Agricultural and Resource Economics Review paper (listed above) indicate that younger consumers prefer organic Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) products and a more diverse produce will increase the probability of CSA membership. Food, Behavior, and Health Linkages: The project team investigated household-level food purchases to investigate the link between where households shopped and the healthiness of their food purchases. We found that an increased share of the households' food dollar spent at supermarkets or supercenters led to increased healthiness of food purchases, whereas an increased share of the food dollar spent at drug stores and convenience stores led to decreased healthiness of food purchases. This research is described in more detail in an Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy publication and a USDA-Economic Research Service research report. Findings published in Agribusiness (Li et al.) describe how consumers make tradeoffs between price and health-related product attributes. We find, in the mid-2000s, consumers were ready for ready-to-eat cereal product reformulations that favored whole grains. These type of product reformulations enhance consumer and producer welfare. On the other hand, hypothetical reformations that reduced sugar content or increased fiber content would have led to welfare reductions. Findings published in the Journal of Retailing (Bauner et al.) explain how food manufacturers and food retailers compete over product positioning, pricing, and couponing. Analysis of market data support our theoretical model's predictions, namely that increased product differentiation between national brand and store brand products will cause national brand manufacturers to increase the value of their "cents off" coupons. Findings published in Agricultural Economics (Liu, Chen, and Rabinowitz) show that both retailer market power and state pricing regulations contribute to the heterogeneity in asymmetric price transmission. Higher retailer market power causes retail prices of private label milk to rise faster when retail prices are rising and to fall slower when retail prices are falling. The existence of a state pricing regulation slows down the adjustment speeds of retail prices of private labels back to the long-run equilibrium, regardless of whether the retail price is low or high. Findings published in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization (He, Lopez and Liu) show that traditional media (TV and print) advertisements are close substitutes, and online advertising is a complement to, rather than a substitute for, both TV and print media advertising in three industries: beer, ready-to-eat cereals, and carbonated soft drinks. Two working papers describe improved ways to measure a household's loyalty to a particular brand and their inclination to seek variety, and then show how these new measures improve the estimation of brand-choice models. Two recent papers investigate food waste at the household level. One, now accepted for publication in theAmerican Journal of Agricultural Economics finds that households with higher income, higher levels of household food security, and healthier diets waste more food. Another working paper (submitted to Food Policy) show that a New York City policy that increased the duration of "sell by" dates for milk reduced sales by about 10%, thereby implying that more than 10% less milk was wasted. Findings published in Food Policy (Chen et al.) show how hypothetical caffeine policies can alter consumer purchasing behavior of caffeine-loaded energy drinks. Results indicate that hypothetical policies that require mandatory caffeine labeling or advertising restrictions would reduce overall sales in the energy drinks sector, while an alternative hypothetical policy, a cap on caffeine level, might have mixed impacts on sales, depending on precisely how the policy would be implemented. A study in the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics uses an eye-tracking technology to examine consumer preferences for local and organic produce, notably effects of logo- versus text-labeling formats. Results suggest that consumers prefer local to non-local, but some consumers will pay a higher premium for logo-labeled produce compared with text-labeled produce. Goal 2: Healthfulness of the Food Environment: The project team used household-level food-purchase data and individual data on health outcomes to investigate linkages between the food environment, food purchase behavior, and health. Our main finding, published in theAmerican Journal of Public Health (Chen, Jaenicke, and Volpe), is that individuals living in an area classified as a food desert are statistically more likely to be obese. Findings published in the American Journal of Health Promotion (Chen et al.) suggest that higher compliance with the USDA Thrifty Food Plans are associated with lower risk of childhood overweight or obesity. One the other hand, expenditure shares by store-format type (e.g., supermarkets, supercenters, convenience stores, etc.) are not significantly associated with the weight outcomes. Findings published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (Chenarides and Jaenicke) show that unhealthy product assortments are strongly linked geographically to areas with poor access to food. Using scanner data to look inside supermarkets and other food retailers, we characterize what products are offered, especially fruits and vegetables, and then document the link between these product assortments and food access.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chen, X., Liu, Y., Jaenicke, E. C., & Rabinowitz, A. N. 2019. New Concerns on Caffeine Consumption and The Impact of Potential Regulations: The Case of Energy Drinks. Food Policy. In Press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2019.101746.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Campbell, Benjamin., Liu, Yizao, and Katz, Michael. 2019. Local and Organic Preference: Logo versus Text. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Forthcoming. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/aae.2019.4
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Two Projects on Consumer-level Food Waste: (1) Household Estimates, and (2) Effects from Extended Sell-by Dates. Nutritional Sciences Department, Penn State University, Feb. 25, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: An, Y., D. Davis, R. Huang, Y. Liu, and R. Xiao. Government Procurement, Market Power, and Consumer Welfare: Empirical Evidence from the Infant Formula Market, Bank of Canada, May 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: X. Chen, Y. Liu, and P. Zhou, Product Innovation in Beverage Market and the Demand for Better for You Drinks. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June, 2019


Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project (which has not changed) is researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Additionally, when our results have broader implications, we will also target policy makers and other stakeholders in the food and health field. Changes/Problems:This past calendar year (2018) saw a change in study-team membership: Scott Colby left Penn State and is off the project; however, Yizao Liu recently joined both Penn State and the project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated to communities of interest via two main avenues: publishing in peer-reviewed journals and presenting at research conferences. In 2018, the study team has published papers in the Journal of Retailing, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, American Journal of Health Promotion, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization and Agribusiness. In addition, study team members presented papers at the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, Southern Agricultural Economics Association and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For the most part, the study team's plans for the next reporting period involve moving existing research projects forward toward publication. However, we do anticipate one important new project starting: Study team members plan to initiate a study that will seek to identify and investigate addictive behavior in particular food products, especially potentially unhealthy products such as salty snacks or sugar-sweetened beverages.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Accomplishments related to Goal 1: Findings cited in the Li et al. Agribusiness paper (listed above) describe how consumers make tradeoffs between price and health-related product attributes. We find, in the mid-2000s, consumers were ready for ready-to-eat cereal product reformulations that favored whole grains. These type of product reformulations enhance consumer and producer welfare. On the other hand, hypothetical reformations that reduced sugar content or increased fiber content would have led to welfare reductions. Findings in the Bauner et al. Journal of Retailing paper (listed above) explain how food manufacturers and food retailers compete over product positioning, pricing, and couponing. Analysis of market data support our theoretical model's predictions, namely that increased product differentiation between national brand and store brand products will cause national brand manufacturers to increase the value of their "cents off" coupons. Findings in the Marasteanu and Jaenicke Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems paper (listed above) show that the presence of an organic "hotspots" leads to improved economic conditions at local level. For example, counties in an organic hotspot have higher median household incomes and lower poverty rates than counties who are in many ways comparable except that they are not in an organic hotspot. Findings in the Liu, Chen, and Rabinowitz Agricultural Economics paper (listed above) show that both retailer market power and state pricing regulations contribute to the heterogeneity in asymmetric price transmission. Higher retailer market power causes retail prices of private label milk to rise faster when retail prices are rising and to fall slower when retail prices are falling. The existence of a state pricing regulation slows down the adjustment speeds of retail prices of private labels back to the long-run equilibrium, regardless of whether the retail price is low or high. Findngs in the He, Lopez and Liu Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization paper (listed above) show that traditional media (TV and print) advertisements are close substitutes, and online advertising is a complement to, rather than a substitute for, both TV and print media advertising in three industries: beer, ready-to-eat cereals, and carbonated soft drinks. Further results show that the adoption of online advertising has lowered the cost of advertising for achieving a sales target and that its complementarity effect is weakening over time. Two new working papers describe improved ways to measure a household's loyalty to a particular brand and their inclination to seek variety, and then show how these new measures improve the estimation of brand-choice models. Another two working papers investigate food waste at the household level. One finds that households with healthier diets waste more food. Another shows that a New York City policy that increased the duration of "sell by" dates for milk reduced sales by about 10%, thereby implying that more than 10% less milk was wasted. A working paper (submitted for publication at Food Policy) shows the effects of hypothetical policies aimed at energy drinks and caffeine-content labelling. Accomplishments related to Goal 2: Findings in the Chenarides and Jaenicke Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy paper (listed above) show that unhealthy product assortments are strongly linked geographically to areas with poor access to food. Using scanner data to look inside supermarkets and other food retailers, we characterize what products are offered, especially fruits and vegetables, and then document the link between these product assortments and food access. Findings in the Chen et al. American Journal of Health Promotion paper (listed above) suggest that higher compliance with the USDA Thrifty Food Plans are associated with lower risk of childhood overweight or obesity. One the other hand, expenditure shares by store-format type (e.g., supermarkets, supercenters, convenience stores, etc.) are not significantly associated with the weight outcomes. Findings in Yu, Campbell, Liu and Martin Agricultural and Resource Economics Review paper (listed above) indicate that younger consumers prefer organic Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) products and a more diverse produce will increase the probability of CSA membership. A new working paper examines how an exogenous change in the food environment might or might not lead to household food purchases with a different diet quality. We find that a household's food environment, as measured by supermarket store counts), is strongly associated with diet quality. However, when we only examine households who move locations, thus creating an exogenous shift in the household's food environment, we find this association is no longer statistically significant. Finally, when we also note whether the change in locations leads to a better or worse food environment, we find some evidence that a move to a better food environment can lead to improved diet quality.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Bauner, C., E.C. Jaenicke, E. Wang, and P-C. Wu. 2018. Couponing Strategies in Competition Between a National Brand and a Private Label Product. Journal of Retailing. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: He, X., Lopez, R., & Y. Liu. (2018). Are Online and Offline Advertising Substitutes or Complements? Evidence from U.S. Food Industries. Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li J, Jaenicke EC, Anekwe TD, Bonanno A. 2018. Demand for Ready?to?eat cereals with Household?level censored purchase data and nutrition label information: A distance metric approach. Agribusiness. 2018; 127. https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.21561
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Liu, Y., X. Chen, and A. Rabinowitz. 2018. The Role of Retail Market Power and State Regulations in the Heterogeneity of Farm-Retail Price Transmission of Private Label and Branded Products, Agricultural Economics, Forthcoming
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Marasteanu, I. J., and E.C. Jaenicke. 2018. Economic impact of organic agriculture hotspots in the United States. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 1-22. (This paper was marked as in press in last years annual report.)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Volpe, R., E.C. Jaenicke, and L. Chenarides. 2018. "Store Formats, Market Structure, and Consumers Food Shopping Decisions." Status: In press at Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppx033. (This paper was marked as forthcoming in last years annual report.)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Yu, Q., Campbell, B., Y. Liu & Martin, J. 2018. A Choice Based Experiment of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): A Valuation of Attributes, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Consumer-level Food Waste: Household Estimates, and Effects from Extended "Sell-by" Dates. Macalester College Economics Seminar, Saint Paul, MN, Oct. 4, 2018.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chenarides, L, and E.C. Jaenicke. 2018. Documenting the Link between Poor Food Access and Less Healthy Product Assortment across the U.S. Forthcoming, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppy018
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen, D., E.C. Jaenicke, and R.J. Volpe. 2018. The Healthfulness of Food-at-Home Expenditures, the Local Food Environment, and Childhood Obesity.American Journal of Health Promotion. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117118786871
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. (i) Estimating Food Waste at the Household Level and (ii) Food Waste Due to Sell-by Dates. Toulouse School of Economics, Food Economics Group, Toulouse, France. May 24, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Organic Hotspots. Featured speaker at the California Certified Organic Farming (CCOF) Annual Meeting and Conference, Sacramento, CA, Feb. 22-23, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Grace Melo, Adam Rabinowitz, Yizao Liu, Shelly Ver Ploeg. The Retailer Choice of SNAP Participants for Fill-In Purchases. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, Jacksonville, Florida, February 3-6, 2018. And Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Adam Rabinowitz and Yizao Liu, An Examination of Price Transmission in the U.S. Peanut Butter Industry. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, Jacksonville, Florida, February 3-6, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Yizao Liu, Adam Rabinowitz, Xuan Chen, and Benjamin Campbell, Demand, Challenge and Marketing Strategies for Promoting Local Foods in Grocers: The Case of Fluid Milk. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, Jacksonville, Florida, February 3-6, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Iranikermani, Roozbeh, and Edward C. Jaenicke. Variety-Seeking, A Generalized State Dependent Variable Based on Product Attribute Space. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, Philadelphia, PA, June 10-12, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Dong, Zefeng, E.C. Jaenicke, and A. Kuhns. The Effects of Exogenous Changes in Food Environment on Households Healthfulness of Food Purchases. Workshop Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, Philadelphia, PA, June 10-12, 2018. And Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chenarides, Lauren, Edward C. Jaenicke, and Jing Li. Policy Interventions to Improve Urban Food Access. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen, Xuan, Yizao Liu, Edward C. Jaenicke, and Adam N. Rabinowitz. Added Caffeine, Health Concerns and Potential Regulations: The Case of Energy Drinks. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Irani-Kermani, Roozbeh, and Edward C. Jaenicke.Generalizing Variety Seeking Measurement from Brand Space to Product Attribute Space. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Yu, Yang, and Edward C. Jaenicke. The Effect of Sell-By Dates on Purchase Volume and Food Waste: A Case of New York Citys Sell-By Regulation of Milk. Selected Paper Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen, Xuan, Yizao Liu, and Adam N. Rabinowitz, Private Labels and Cost Pass-Through in Fluid Milk Market. Selected Paper Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Grace Melo, Adam N. Rabinowitz, Yizao Liu, and Shelly Ver Ploeg, Fill-in Purchase Decisions of SNAP/WIC Households  Selected Paper Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington, DC, Aug. 5-7, 2018.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Roozbeh Irani-Kermani, Ph.D., 2018. Three Essays on Structural State-Dependent Marketing Variables
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Yizao Liu, Adam Rabinowitz, Xuan Chen, and Benjamin Campbell, Consumer Interest in Animal Welfare and the Environment: The Impact on Willingness-to-Pay for Organic and Local Fluid Milk. Selected Paper Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, Philadelphia, PA, June 10-12, 2018.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jingjing Shu, M.S., 2018. The Link Between Diet Quality and Organic Food Purchases for U.S. Households


Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project (which has not changed) is researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Additionally, when our results have broader implications, we will also target policy makers and other stakeholders in the food and health field. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The study team persented results widely at the annual meetings of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and the Northeast Agricutlural and Resource Economics Association. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Regarding Objective 1.2, "How do health-related product attributes interact with price to affect consumer purchase behavior?": One manuscript investigating how consumers trade off price against health-related project attributes such as sugar, salt, and fiber content has been revised and resubmitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Regarding Objective 2.1, "How does the food environment and socio-demographic variables affect food purchase behavior and health?": One member of the study team was a co-PI on National Institutes of Health grant proposal that investigates the role of the food environment on the role of the overall healthiness of households' food purchases, with particular attention to Hispanic households. In addition, one member of the study team is preparing an invited revision for a peer-reviewed article on what fruit and vegetable product assortments are like in areas of low food access. Regarding Objective 2.3, "How are food shopping decisions (e.g., frequency, store choice, loyalty) related to household characteristics, the food environment, and food choices?": Four papers under the related to food choice and shopping frequency are under review at peer review journals. Significant effort will be required to move them through the review process. Also, the project team is finding that households spend more money on food than predicted on food for each received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dollar. We wish to determine the composition of the "extra" food expenditures, especially with respect to healthfulness. Results would help policymakers evaluate the efficacy of food assistance programs.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Regarding Household Food Consumption, Shopping Frequency and Nutrition: A new theoretical model has been generated hypotheses about what happens when shopping becomes more inconvenient. The model incorporates elements of past models--that we have developed under the purview of this Hatch project--in a more simplified setting. The assumptions are very general and supported by empirical evidence, making the hypotheses relevant to virtually all real life settings. The model predicts that perishable foods will be consumed less when shopping becomes less convenient. The model is tested on a large food consumption recall survey data set. Evidence is strongly in favor of the hypotheses. For example, the consumption of perishable foods is lower when households shop less frequently. More importantly, the consumption of key nutrients related to perishability and health is correlated with shopping frequency in predicted ways. A counterintuitive, yet predicted correlation exists between shopping frequency and calorie consumption: more calories are correlated to less shopping. A competing risk duration analysis model is applied to the shopping frequency/store choice decisions. This constitutes an innovation to the field, as competing risk models are commonly used in epidemiology and related medical fields, but rarely in economics. Predictive power is superior with our model because our model uses the information about when a household does not go shopping in addition to when they do. We developed and applied a concept we call "consumption price" that is equal to the cost per unit of consumed food. This concept is shown to be easily incorporated into a large, well-developed class of economically and mathematically rigorous class of behavior models. Our models better explain food choice decisions and also generate estimates measures of quality-adjusted food waste. We have begun applying these models to international data in an effort to resolve some puzzles about international differences of food consumption among similar countries that are not explained by differences in prices and food attributes. We are working with the World Bank to acquire this data. Regarding Food, Behavior, and Health: The project team investigated household-level food purchase data to investigate the link between where households shopped for food and the healthiness of their food purchases. We found that an increased share of the households' food dollar spent at supermarkets or supercenters led to increased healthiness of food purchases, whereas an increased share of the food dollar spent at drug stores and convenience stores led to decreased healthiness of food purchases. The supercenter result, in particular, was important because prior literature on supercenters' effect on health has so far been mixed. This research is described in more detail in an Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy publication (forthcoming) and a USDA-Economic Research Service research report. Regarding Organic Agriculture Decisions: The project team also analyzed certified organic operations and organic trade. We found that the presence or organic "hotspots", clusters of counties with high levels of organic operations along with a high correlation of those levels across counties, was strongly associated with stronger local economies. More specifically, we use a treatment effects model (as well as a propensity-score matching model) to find that counties that were part of an organic hotspot had higher median incomes and lower poverty rates than non-hotspot counties. These results are forthcoming in the Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems journal. We also invested organic trade to investigate the impact of the 2012 bilateral organic equivalency arrangement between the European Union and the United States, the two largest organic markets in the world. Employing the newly available USDA Global Agricultural Trade System (GATS) data on organic trade, we collectively analyze 23 products of U.S. organic exports, representing fresh produce, coffee, and tomato sauce, at the quarterly level during the 2011-2014 period. We find that the policy generates an increase of $149,100, or 9.1%, in the organic exports of these products to the European Union each quarter.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Volpe, R., E.C. Jaenicke, and L. Chenarides. Store Formats, Market Structure, and Consumers Food Shopping Decisions. Status: Forthcoming at Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: McNeil, M., and E.C. Jaenicke. Organic: A Solid, Beneficial and Sustainable Investment. In Harvesting Opportunity: The Power of Regional Food System Investments to Transform Communities, edited by A. Dumont, D. Davis, J. Wascalus, T.C. Wilson, J. Barham, and D. Tropp, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2017.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Volpe, R., A. Kuhns, and E.C. Jaenicke. 2017. Store Formats and Patterns in Household Grocery Purchases, EIB-167, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Lauren Chenarides, Ph.D., 2017. The Effects of the Food Retailing Landscape and Food Deserts on Retailers' Marketing Strategies and Consumer Store Choice.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C., with L. Chenarides and J. Handbury. Whats in Your Basket? A Discussion of New Research on Food Access, Shopping Behavior & Health from National & Philadelphia-based Studies. Penn State Center  Philadelphia, June 19, 2017. Invited.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Ben Scharadin, Ph.D., 2017. Three Essays on Household Time Allocations, Food Behavior, and Diet Quality.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: I.J. Marasteanu and E.C. Jaenicke. Economic Impact of Organic Agriculture Hotspots in the United States. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Status: In Press.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Demko, I., R. Dinterman, M. Marez, and E.C. Jaenicke, E.C. 2017. U.S. Organic Trade Data: 2011 to 2016. The Organic Trade Association, Washington, DC, 25 pages.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Chenarides-Hall, L. and E.C. Jaenicke. Store Choice and Consumer Behavior in Food Deserts: An Empirical Application of the Distance Metric Method, Invited Paper. ASSA Session on Modeling Household Food Choice Behavior Using Store-Based and Household-Based Scanner Data," Allied Social Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, January 6-8, 2017. Invited.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Chen., D., and E.C. Jaenicke. Composition of Food-at-Home Expenditures and Childhood Obesity. Selected Paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference, July 30-August 1, 2017, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Colby, S. & Chen, Y. (grad student). Measuring Food Waste: A Demand System Approach. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Conference, Chicago, IL July 30-August 1, 2017.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Colby, S. Processed Food and Shelf-Lives: Why Shopping Frequency May be a Key Determinant of Diet-Based Diseases. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Conference, Chicago, IL July 30-August 1, 2017.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Colby, S. & Chen, Y. (grad student). You Pay for What You Eat, Not What You Buy: A Cost of Consumption Framework for the Demand of Perishable Goods. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) conference, Washington, DC, June 11-14.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Chenarides, L., and E.C. Jaenicke. Welfare Impacts from Store Attribute-Based Policy Interventions in an Urban Setting: An Application to Philadelphia. Selected Paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference, July 30-August 1, 2017, Chicago, IL.


Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project (which has not changed) is researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Objective 1.2: One manuscript has been drafted and submitted to peer-reviewed journals that investigate how consumer's trade-off price against health-related project attributes such as sugar, salt, and fiber content. Objective 2.1: One manuscript has been drafted and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal that investigates the role of the food environment on the role of the overall healthiness of households' food purchases. In addition, a grant proposal has been submitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the same topic. In the next year, we plan to follow up on these efforts by improving our identification strategy to isolate the causal role of the food environment. Objective 2.3: To apply our shopping frequency-food choice models to recently acquired international data for the purpose of explaining dramatic differences between U.S. food consumption and peer nations. Objective 2.3: To investigate the role that food decay plays in the food consumption paths of households, and to see if failure to account for food decay has driven previously published results indicating that SNAP recipients are hyperbolic discounters (i.e. intertemporally inconsistent people who make regretful food consumption decisions due to a lack of self-control). Objective 2.3: To examine consumer store choice decisions using a "consumption cost" framework (a framework developed in this Hatch project). Specifically, we suspect that differing food shopping frequencies by food store types (e.g. supercenters, traditional grocer) results in different rates of household food waste. This may explain why supercenter shoppers tend to purchase a less nutritious and less perishable food basket: the unit costs of consuming perishable foods compared to nonperishable foods is higher if you shop with low frequency--which is typical of supercenter and club store shoppers.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Regarding Household Food Consumption, Shopping Frequency and Nutrition: The project team developed a way to incorporate a theoretical model of household food consumption (that was previously developed by this Hatch project) into commonly applied empirical demand models in a theoretically consistent and rigorous way. Applying this model to household food demand data has produced estimates of unobserved variables and outcomes such as food decay rates and food waste. The team has developed and implemented a model of the causative link between shopping frequency and food choice. Shopping frequency is found to cause households to purchase more fresh produce, but the magnitude of the affect is small. This finding informs policy aimed at improving community health through better store access. Relationships between shopping frequency and nutrient consumption have been found. Specifically, consumers that shop more frequently consume more nutrients that decay faster (such as unsaturated fatty acids, omega-3 fatty acids, and low energy density foods), and less of nutrients that extend product shelf-lives (such as salt, saturated fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids, high energy density). Based on these findings and other findings from medical sciences, a hypothesis for has been formulated to explain the observed associations between food retail environments and community health: poor food access causes lower shopping frequency, which causes a shift to less perishable foods, which have a nutrient content that increases the incidence of diet-based disease. Regarding Food, Behavior, and Health: The project team used household-level food-purchase data and individual data on health outcomes to investigate linkages between the food environment, food purchase behavior, and health. Our main finding, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is that individuals living in an area classified as a food desert are statistically more likely to be obese. In a separate study, the project team also found that households purchase healthier foods when they spend a greater share of their food dollar in supermarkets and supercenters. The supermarket result is conventional wisdom, but the supercenter result runs against some but not all previous studies. We also found that increased industry concentration in the retail food sector leads to less healthy food purchases.

Publications

  • Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Organic Hotspots and Labor. Natural Foods Expo East, All Things Organic, Trade Show, Education, and Events. Baltimore Convention Center, September 23, 2016.
  • Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. A Distance Metric Approach to Attributes-based Consumer Choices: Applications to (i) Brand Choice in Ready-to-Eat Cereals and (ii) Store Choice in a Single Geographic Market. Toulouse School of Economics, Food Economics Group, Toulouse, France, September 7, 2016.
  • Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. U.S. Organic Hotspots and their Benefit to Local Economies. The Organic Trade Association Policy Conference, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2016.
  • Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Chenarides, L., and E.C. Jaenicke. Product Assortments, Price-Cost Margins, and Food Access across the U.S. Food Retailing Landscape. Workshop on Applying IRI Store and Household Scanner Data in Food Policy Studies. Washington, DC. April 18-19, 2016.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Danhong Chen, Edward C. Jaenicke, and Richard J. Volpe. 2016. Food Environments and Obesity: Household Diet Expenditure Versus Food Deserts. American Journal of Public Health, 106 (5): 881-888.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: I.J. Marasteanu and E.C. Jaenicke. 2016. Hotspots and Spatial Autocorrelation in Certified Organic Operations in the United States. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Colby S. Shopping Frequency, Fresh Produce Consumption, and Food Retail Environments. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference, July 31-August 2, 2016, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Chenarides, L., and E.C. Jaenicke. Store Choice and Consumer Behavior in Food Deserts: An Empirical Application of the Distance Metric Method. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference, July 31-August 2, 2016, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Demko, I., and E.C. Jaenicke. Policy Impacts from U.S. Organic Equivalency with the European Union. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) conference, July 31-August 2, 2016, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Colby S. Food Choice, Shopping Frequency, and Household Characteristics. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) conference, June 19-21, 2016, Bar Harbor, ME.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Scharadin, B., and E.C. Jaenicke. Increased Time Stress and the Diet Quality of Low Income Households. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) conference, June 19-21, 2016, Bar Harbor, ME.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Iryna Demko, Ph.D., 2016. Three Essays on Credence Goods, Health, and Organic Food.(Advisor: Jaenicke)
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Jing Li, Ph.D., 2016, Three Essays on the Health-Related Product Attributes and Consumer Purchasing Behavior: An Application to Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal Market. (Advisor: Jaenicke)
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Yingxian Wu, Ph.D., 2016. Essays on Consumers Shopping Behavior for Fresh Produce. (Advisor: Jaenicke)


Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience:This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1: The study team is developing an innovative consumer demand model that would allow us to estimate how consumers trade off price against health-related project attributes such as sugar, salt, and fiber content. Objective 2: The project team has built and estimated a model that investigates the link between individuals' obesity status and the home and neighborhood food environments. Separately, the team has developed and estimated a model that links households' shopping frequency patterns to what they buy. In each of these cases, a manuscript has been written and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? First, the project team found that organic prices at the retail level generate a substantial premium for organic products, and that the organic price premium is general not diminishing. The lead article in the Fall 2015 volume of Agribusiness: An International Journal presents these findings. The next step for this project is to investigate more recent years, that is, after 2010, and to investigate additional retail products for organic premiums. Second, the project team also investigated the level of organic food exports and imports from and to the U.S. Findings suggest that exports are strongly increasing, whereas imports have mixed results. Additional preliminary findings suggest that "equivalence" bi-lateral policies that allow organic food to be exported or imported without additional certifications have a positive effect on the level of exports and imports. Third, the project team assisted on an analysis of how shale gas drilling activity in Pennsylvania has affected employment. While the findings of this project were outside the scope of the Hatch project #4567, this analysis allowed team members the chance to develop a methodology that will be useful in upcoming analyses covered by #4567. Last, preliminary results show that the food environment is related to supermarkets' product assortment decisions. Areas with low food accessibility have significantly lower product assortments. This preliminary finding suggests that retailers' marketing decisions about product assortment exacerbate the adverse impacts to consumers residing in food deserts.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2015 Citation: I.J. Marasteanu and E.C. Jaenicke. The Role of US Organic Certifiers in Organic Hotspot Formation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. In press 2015, FirstView Article available online.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jaenicke, E. C., and A. Carlson. Estimating and Investigating Organic Premiums for Retail-Level Food Products. Agribusiness: an International Journal, 31 (Fall 2015): 453471.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Demko, I., an E.C. Jaenicke. Estimating the Impact of Organic Equivalency Arrangement between the E.U. and the U.S. Selected Paper at the 2015 AAEA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA, July 26-28, 2015.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wrenn, D.H., T.W. Kelsey, and E.C. Jaenicke. Local and Non-local Employment Impacts Associated with Marcellus Shale Development in Pennsylvania. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 42 (August 2015): 1-19.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. and I. Demko. Preliminary Analysis of USDAs Organic Trade Data: 2011 to 2014. The Organic Trade Association, Washington, DC, April 2015, 120 pages.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Marasteanu, I.J., and E.C. Jaenicke. The Role of US Organic Certifiers in Organic Hotspot Formation. Selected Paper at the 2015 AAEA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA, July 26-28, 2015.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Organic Equivalencys International Trade Impact. Natural Foods Expo East, All Things Organic, Trade Show, Education, and Events. Baltimore Convention Center, September 18, 2015.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Quantifying the International Organic Marketplace. Organic Trade Association Policy Conference, The Organic Trade Association, Washington, D.C., April 15, 2015.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wrenn, D.H., E.C. Jaenicke, and H.A. Klaiber. Unconventional Shale Gas Development, Risk Perceptions, and Averting Behavior: Evidence from Bottled Water Purchases. Selected Paper at the 2015 NAREA Annual Meeting. Newport, RI, June 28-30, 2015.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Chenarides, L.. R. Volpe, and E.C. Jaenicke. Price-Cost Margins and Marketing Strategies across the U.S. Food Retailing Landscape. Selected Paper at the 2015 EAAE-AAEA Joint Seminar on Consumer Behavior in Changing World, Naples, Italy, March 25-27, 2015.


Progress 07/01/14 to 09/30/14

Outputs
Target Audience: This project investigates interdependent behaviors of food manufacturers, food retailers, and consumer, especially as they involve product prices, health-related product attributes, and product information. The target audience for this project researchers in the agricultural and applied economics profession, including those at universities and U.S. government agencies. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Objective 1: During the next reporting period, the project team plans to develop and estimate a consumer demand model, using the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal sector as a case study, that incorporates health-related product attributes and price. The results will tell us how U.S. consumers make tradeoffs between price and fat-sugar-fiber product attributes. Objective 2: The project team will build and estimate a model that investigates the link between individuals' obesity status and the home and neighborhood food environments. Separately, the team will develop and estimate a model that investigates households' shopping frequency patterns.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Regarding Objective 1.1, the project completed the first phase or research on investigating retail-level organic price premiums. The study team found that, for four diverse products, the organic price premiums are significant and not diminishing over time. Factors that influence the size of the organic price premium are the sizes of the organic and non-organic market and the share of organic products sold through the supercenter format. A manuscript describing this work has been submitted for publication. Regarding Objective 2.1, the project completed research that links (a) the healthfulness of consumers food purchases to the type of store where consumers shop, and (b) food-environment variables and the healthfulness of food purchases to the likelihood a household member will be obese. First, the study team found that the share of food purchased at traditional supermarkets, club stores, convenience stores, supercenters, and other formats has positive and negative impacts on the healthfulness of food purchases. Second, the study team finds that increased food purchase healthfulness is associated with a lower likelihood of obesity, while a "food desert" indicator is associated with a higher likelihood of obesity. Two manuscripts reflecting both of these results have been submitted for publication.

Publications

  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Marasteanu, Julia, Ph.D., 2014. Hot Spots of United States Certified Organic Operations: Identification, Formation, and Impact. (Jaenicke, dissertation advisor.)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Chen, Danhong, R. Volpe, and E. C. Jaenicke. Health Outcomes, Food Purchases, and the Food Landscape. Selected Paper at the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June 1-3, 2014, Morgantown, WV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Chenarides, L., E.C. Jaenicke, and R. Volpe. Patterns of Price-Cost Margins and Other Marketing Strategies Across the Food Retailing Landscape. Selected Paper at the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June 1-3, 2014, Morgantown, WV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Marasteanu, I. and E.C. Jaenicke, Clusters of Organic Operations and their Impact on Regional Economic Growth in the United States. Selected Paper at the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June 1-3, 2014, in Morgantown, WV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Marasteanu, I. and E.C. Jaenicke, Clusters of Organic Operations and their Impact on Regional Economic Growth in the United States. Selected Paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annul Meeting, July 27-27, 2014, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Demko, I., and E.C. Jaenicke. Learning in Credence Good Markets: An Example of Vitamins. Selected Paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, July 27-27, 2014, Minneapolis, MN.