price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets price dispersion i e a homogeneous product being sold at different prices by different sellers is among the most replicated findings in empirical economics the paper assesses the extent and determinants of spatial price dispersion for 14 perfectly homogeneous food products in more than 400 retailers in a market characterized by the persistence of a large number of relatively small traditional food stores alongside large supermarkets the extent of observed price dispersion is quite high when prices in an urban area where the spatial concentration of sellers is higher are compared with those in smaller towns and rural areas differences in search costs and the potentially higher degree of competition do not yield lower prices other counteracting factors including differences in seller costs and consumer incomes make prices on average higher in the urban area for 11 of the 14 products considered for many but not all the products supermarkets proved to be less expensive than traditional retailers although average savings from food shopping at supermarkets were extremely low finally the results of the study provide evidence that retailers have different pricing strategies and these differences also emerge for supermarkets belonging to the same chain the results presented in the paper suggest that a variety of factors play a role in explaining price dispersion in addition to differences in seller costs the contemporaneous heterogeneity of retailers in terms of services provided and consumers in terms of search costs and preferences makes the emergence of monopolistic competition possible as well as allowing small traditional food retailers to remain in business

rethinking the development agenda this paper calls for a development agenda based on five major premises 1 a more balanced form of globalisation based on a genuine respect for diversity 2 a broad view of macroeconomic stability which provides an adequate role for counter cyclical policies 3 the need to complement macroeconomic stability with active productive development policies 4 strong social policies and the mainstreaming of social objectives into economic policies to guarantee adequate linkages between economic and social development and 5 the recognition that development involves broader human development goals copyright 2002 oxford university press

linking agricultural policies with obesity and noncommunicable diseases a new perspective for a globalising world abstract in light of the shift in policy paradigm in agriculture from state intervention to market liberalisation and globalisation this paper develops a series of hypotheses on the relationship between agricultural policies and consumer diets the first hypothesis is that the paradigm shift has led to greater specialisation of production so changing the ability and incentive for producers to supply certain foods relative to others second the shift has affected farmgate prices both up and down so creating opportunities for the industries which purchase farm commodities the food consuming industries fcis to substitute lower priced ingredients thereby influencing the nutritional quality and content of foods available in the marketplace third it has increased the ability of the fcis to add value through product innovation and marketing creating a market characterised by highly differentiated products targeted to individualised preferences thus increasing the acceptability of a wider variety and quantity of food products the changing agricultural policy paradigm has therefore altered the environment in which consumers make their food choices in the form of food availability affordability and acceptability nevertheless the paper finds no clear pattern when it comes to health the changes have affected both unhealthy and healthy foods and ingredients the key process of importance for health then is not whether the ingredients produced by agriculture are healthy or not but how they are substituted transformed distributed and marketed through the supply chain e g vegetable oils into transfats this leads to an important implication that policies to intervene directly in agricultural production to promote healthy eating are unlikely to be effective or efficient if they do not take into account how foods are processed distributed and marketed through the supply chain in practice this means that the potential for policy interventions in agriculture to improve diets is limited but nevertheless potentially important where it exists given the upstream nature of the change incentives could be created for the fcis to substitute healthier ingredients in their products and or to sell more of them in instances where these changes can be passed all the way to the consumer greater investment could also be made in fruit and vegetable production for local markets along with testing the hypotheses established in this paper the research priority should to identify the incentives that influence the products produced by the fcis with the objective of finding those most amenable to leveraging the supply chain towards healthier eating

farm policies and added sugars in us diets abstract we examine how us farm policies for sweetener crops have affected the consumption and composition of sweeteners in the us diet r d expenditures have lowered the unit cost of commodities used in sweeteners but have generated more technical progress in corn than in sugar crops increasing use of corn in food production ceteris paribus commodity programs have raised the price of sugar and decreased the price of corn thus high fructose corn syrup hfcs became an inexpensive substitute for sugar in food from 1970 on however the effect of policy on ingredient prices has become less important over time today the farm value share in sweetened food is below 5 and hfcs is a specialized input in many food items with limited substitution possibilities the current link between us sweetener consumption and farm policy is weak recent evidence from other high income countries shows little relationship between sweetener consumption and sugar policies

farm subsidies and obesity in the united states national evidence and international comparisons abstract many commentators have claimed that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the obesity epidemic by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant but u s farm policies have generally small and mixed effects on farm commodity prices which in turn have even smaller and still mixed effects on the relative prices of more and less fattening foods other factors have had much more influence on reducing the farm prices of food commodities and the consumer prices of food such that any effects of u s farm policies on u s obesity patterns must have been negligible moreover while many arguments can be made for changing u s farm subsidies even entirely eliminating the current programs could not be expected to have a significant influence on obesity rates international evidence reinforces this finding the countries that support their farmers most strongly tend to have relatively low obesity rates in these countries the main support for farmers comes through trade barriers and higher consumer prices which like u s policies for sugar dairy orange juice and beef discourage consumption and reduce obesity in contrast with agricultural subsidies agricultural r d has had a significant effect in the past on the relative price of food commodities and food and has the potential to influence obesity patterns in the future but r d policy is a very blunt instrument for pursuing public health policy objectives

evaluation of the environmental impact of weekly food consumption in different socio economic households in australia using environmentally extended input output analysis this paper uses input output analysis to model the environmental impacts of the weekly food consumption of australia s households sorted by income quintile in 2003 we found that weekly food consumption of the relatively better off households caused greater environmental burden than that of the less well off household meat and bakery products flour cereals were the categories that contributed the largest share of environmental impacts in an average household s food consumption footprint 58 water 26 energy 29 co2 and 31 wasted materials per dollar spent fruit and vegetables generated 0 0874 m3 of water 0 0055 gj of energy 0 37 kg of co2 and 0 0114 kg of wasted materials this was lower than the per dollar impacts of bakery products 0 8482 0 0067 0 63 0 0204 meat 0 3471 0 0070 0 65 0 0203 dairy 0 0995 0 0114 0 98 0 0192 and edible fats 0 2373 0 0080 0 70 0 0165 eating out and fast food consumption also had a low per dollar impact 0 1317 0 0046 0 38 0 0141 we surmise that substituting fruit and vegetables at the expense of animal products processed foods and fats would decrease environmental impacts change at low income levels should be focused upon meat bakery and dairy consumption while higher incomes should be focused upon the consequences of eating food outside the home

why are the wages of job changers so procyclical evidence on wage cyclicality shows job changers have more procyclical wages than job stayers previous work argued this arises because workers gain greater access to jobs in sectors such as manufacturing that offer high wages this article argues that workers who switch jobs in booms enter temporary jobs with unemployment risk and are merely compensated for subsequent losses i demonstrate that the two explanations can be distinguished using the relationship between unemployment insurance and wage cyclicality among job changers the evidence supports the compensation hypothesis that is that job changers might not experience real gains from higher paying jobs in booms

financial globalisation and crisis institutional transformation and equity this paper comprises the long introduction to the symposium of five papers on financial globalisation published in the cambridge journal of economics volume 34 no 2 the paper discusses the impact of financial globalisation in a variety of spheres and shows how the five papers link together to provide a coherent view of the current economic and financial crisis in this paper we also examine the globalisation of finance more broadly both in historical terms as well as in relation to the current widespread failure in the financial markets we take up the policy question of how the interests of the poor in particular and developing countries in general could be safeguarded from the vagaries of financial globalisation questioning how much choice communities and countries have and what can the international community do to extend these choices

environmental impacts of changes to healthier diets in europe food consumption causes together with mobility shelter and the use of electrical products most life cycle impacts of consumption meat and dairy are among the highest contributors to environmental impacts from food consumption a healthier diet might have less environmental impacts using the e3iot environmentally extended input output database developed in an eu study on environmental impacts of products eipro this paper estimates the difference in impacts between the european status quo and three simulated diet baskets i e a pattern according to universal dietary recommendations the same pattern with reduced meat consumption and a mediterranean pattern with reduced meat consumption production technologies protein and energy intake were kept constant though this implies just moderate dietary shifts impact reductions of up to 8 were possible in reduced meat scenarios the slightly changed food costs do not lead to significant first order rebound effects second order rebounds were estimated by applying the capri partial equilibrium model this analysis showed that european meat production sector will most likely respond by higher exports to compensate for losses on the domestic meat market higher impact reductions probably would need more drastic diet changes 2011 elsevier b v

price transmission across the u s food distribution system price transmission models are estimated using recursive methods across 100 food commodities from the individual commodities short and long run price transmission coefficients are estimated for rising and falling prices these coefficients are classified into five commodity categories and expressed as one vector while coding for causality market levels rising falling prices short and long run and time period then the impact of each variable is estimated and inferences are drawn about the degree of price transmission results show that price linkages are strong but slightly declining over time with some evidence of asymmetric behavior long run rising prices are passed through more than long run falling prices except for fruits and vegetables

trade liberalisation in developing economies modest benefits but problems with productivity growth macro prices and income distribution microeconomically the case for liberalisation is dubious under increasing returns to scale and when firms can invest directly in productivity enhancement distributional effects of commercial policy changes can be regressive and large but the rents they generate can serve as a basis for effective policy intervention contingent on firms performance macroeconomically the case of liberalisation rests on say s law which is not always enforced recent combined current and capital market liberalisations have been associated with strong exchange rates and high interest rates and output and productivity growth have positive mutual feedbacks which liberalisation may well suppress

food and consumer behavior why the details matter a growing body of literature now demonstrates the importance of behavioral factors in individual food consumption however whether addressing hunger nutrition or obesity food policies are often created to target changes at the aggregate level these policies ignore such behavioral tools or effects and their potential heterogeneous effects on consumers in this article we review the most important results examining food consumption and behavioral economics and provide a thorough discussion of how such tools are now being added to the lexicon of effective policy tools in addition we discuss how traditional policy tools that ignore the individual behavioral effects can miss the mark or even backfire the implication is clear a thorough understanding of behavioral economics is necessary to create efficient food policy

diet shifts towards meat and the effects on cereal us can we feed the animals in 2030 abstract the paper argues that current international projections of meat and feed demand may underestimate future consumption patterns for mainly two reasons demand projections are based on income extrapolation with an assumed demand elasticity and feed requirements per unit of meat are taken to be fixed instead we propose a structural specification that includes a dietary shift towards meat as per capita income increases and we account for a shift from traditional to cereal intensive feeding technologies our finding is that under the commonly assumed growth rates of per capita income world cereal feed demand will be significantly higher in the coming 30 years than is currently projected by international organizations even if we allow for price effects compared to other factors that are generally expected to affect the future world food situation the quantitative impact of the increased cereal feed demand greatly exceeds that of gmos and climate change in the coming three decades

on the dynamic effects of oil price shocks a study using industry level data abstract this paper analyzes the effects of oil price shocks on demand and supply in various industries the impulse responses of identified var models indicate that for industries that have a large cost share of oil such as petroleum refinery and industrial chemicals oil price shocks mainly reduce supply in contrast for many other industries with the automobile industry being a particularly important example oil price shocks mainly reduce demand the paper suggests that oil price shocks influence economic activities beyond that explained by direct input cost effects possibly by delaying purchasing decisions of durable goods

separating the effects of aggregate and sectoral shocks with estimates from a markov switching search model abstract a two sector stochastic model of labor market search is estimated in order to identify aggregate and sectoral shocks which impact upon the recruitment intensity decisions of firms separation of aggregate and sectoral recruitment effects is achieved through the use of data for two canadian regions which were affected in opposite directions by recent resource price shocks the results of the estimation process suggest that sectoral shocks can have significant quantitative effects on unemployment duration and the unemployment rate

the effects of farm commodity and retail food policies on obesity and economic welfare in the united states many commentators claim that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the obesity epidemic by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant and symmetrically that taxing unhealthy commodities or subsidizing healthy commodities would contribute to reducing obesity rates in this article we use an equilibrium displacement model to estimate and compare the economic welfare effects from a range of hypothetical farm commodity and retail food policies as alternative mechanisms for encouraging consumption of healthy food or discouraging consumption of unhealthy food or both we find that compared with retail taxes on fat sugar or all food or subsidies on fruits and vegetables at the farm or retail levels a tax on calories would be the most efficient obesity policy a tax on calories would have the lowest deadweight loss per pound of fat reduction in average adult weight and would yield a net social gain once the impact on public health care expenditures is considered

international prices costs and markup differences relative cross border retail prices in a common currency comove closely with the nominal exchange rate using product level prices and wholesale costs from a grocery chain operating in the united states and canada we decompose this variation into relative costs and markup components the high correlation of nominal and real exchange rates is driven mainly by changes in relative costs national borders segment markets retail prices respond to changes in costs in neighboring stores within the same country but not across the border prices have a median discontinuous change of 24 percent at the border and 0 percent at state boundaries jel f31 l11 l81

why do the free trade gain numbers differ so much the role of industrial organization in general equilibrium a small general equilibrium model calibrated approximately to match the canadian tradeable goods sector is used to examine the implications of a range of assumptions about pricing behaviour and entry barriers for the impact of free trade with the united states it turns out that only a model with an extreme combination of non competitive product market and free entry as well as unexploited scale economies can generate substantial gains from free trade other assumptions modelled include monopolistic competition market share pricing an economist s model and a mainstream industrial organization approach the predicted welfare gains range from zero to more than 7 per cent of gnp pourquoi est ce que les evaluations numeriques des gains derives de l accord de libre echange different tellement le role de l organisation industrielle dans l analyse d equilibre g6neral l auteur utilise un petit modele d equilibre general calibre pour approximer le secteur canadien des biens echangeables avec l exterieur dans son analyse des implications d un ensemble de postulats quant a la tarification et aux barrieres a l entree sur l impact du libre echange avec les etats unis il appert que seul un modele impliquant une combinaison extreme de marches de produit non concurrentiels et d entree libre ainsi que d economies d echelle non exploitees peut engendrer des gains substantiels comme resultat du libre echange on examine aussi d autres postulats concurrence monopolistique tarification pour maintenir une part du marche un modele a saveur economiste et 1 approche standard d organisation industrielle les gains de bien etre qu on predit selon les postulats de base couvrent un eventail de zero a 7 pour cent du pnb

the outputs of retail activities concepts measurement and evidence from u s census data the authors develop a new economic framework for the empirical analysis of retail margins this framework formalizes the role of distribution services as outputs of retail activities their main results are the following the measures of outputs of retail activities identified in the data perform as important and robust determinants of retail margins variables that purport to capture oligopolistic features of market structure play a limited or no role in determining retail margins quantity setting and price setting under the assumptions of profit maximization and monopolistic competition are categorically rejected by the data the data base is information on 49 retail sectors from the 1982 u s census of retail trades copyright 1993 by mit press

sectoral shifts and cyclical unemployment a substantial fraction of cyclical unemployment is better characterized as fluctuations of the frictional or natural rate than as deviations from some relatively stable natural rate shifts of employment demand between sectors of the economy necessitate continuous labor reallocation since it takes time for workers to find new jobs some unemployment is unavoidable this paper presents evidence that most of the unemployment fluctuations of the seventies unlike those in the sixties were induced by unusual structural shifts within the u s economy simple time series models of layoffs and unemployment are constructed that include a measure of structural shifts within the labor market these models are estimated and a derived natural rate series is constructed

the role of intratemporal adjustment costs in a multisector economy abstract in this paper we construct a multisector business cycle model which is capable of reproducing the procyclical behavior of cross sector measures of capital employment and output we start by documenting the difficulty that a standard variant of a conventional real business cycle model has in accounting for these facts we then show how the introduction of intratemporal adjustment costs for investment can significantly enhance the performance of such a model these costs make it difficult to alter the composition of production of new capital goods the presence of these costs eliminates many counterfactual observations of the model that would otherwise be present the dynamic response of variables in the model is different from what one would observe in the standard one sector model we also examine the implications of imposing intratemporal adjustment costs for labor the model can also account for the cross sector behavior of employment observed in the data

cheap food policy fact or rhetoric abstract the term cheap food policy has frequently been used as a descriptor for us commodity programs by those who contend payments to farmers ultimately result in lower food costs for consumers more recently farm policy has been criticized for contributing to the obesity problem in the us by making large quantities of fattening foods widely available and relatively inexpensive this paper econometrically evaluates the impact of direct government payments on the affordability of food in the us in the aggregate and across specific food groups the models find direct payments do not significantly affect the affordability of food either in the aggregate or across specific food groups

scanner data and the measurement of inflation this paper outlines the potential use of bar code scanner data from retailers for the measurement of inflation the source benefits from its extensive coverage in providing data on prices quantities and values of transactions of each model of a good sold relative weights can thus be ascribed to price changes in both base and current months at a highly detailed level which allows us to estimate substitution bias methods of adjusting for quality changes can be considered the dummy variable hedonic approach is compared with a superlative exact hedonic approach and a matching technique akin to that used by statistical offices

retailers strategies and food price dynamics evidence from dairy scanner data abstract we investigate the relationship between retailers strategies and dairy price dynamics using high frequency italian scanner data for different dairy products we compute a weekly drift free price index specific for product category chain and type of store exploiting the unbalanced panel data structure to control for unobservable strategies by chain time and type of store we test if unobservables are statistically significant in influencing the price dynamics of each of the products covered by our analysis in general chain and type of store specific unobservables play a significant role moreover we identify the role of some observable strategic variables in controlling or in stimulating price inflation rates we obtain mixed results on the relationship between private label pl market shares and price trend while we find price promotions to be more effective if applied to national brands nbs rather than pls we conclude with some implications for the potential role of public policies in controlling food inflation

the revolving door and worker flows in banking regulation abstract this paper traces career transitions of federal and state u s banking regulators from a large sample of publicly available curricula vitae and provides basic facts on worker flows between the regulatory and private sector resulting from the revolving door we find strong countercyclical net worker flows into regulatory jobs driven largely by higher gross outflows into the private sector during booms these worker flows are also driven by state specific banking conditions as measured by local banks profitability asset quality and failure rates the regulatory sector seems to experience a retention challenge over time with shorter regulatory spells for workers and especially those with higher education evidence from cross state enforcement actions of regulators shows gross inflows into regulation and gross outflows from regulation are both higher during periods of intense enforcement though gross outflows are significantly smaller in magnitude these results appear inconsistent with a quid pro quo explanation of the revolving door but consistent with a regulatory schooling hypothesis

the future of food scenarios and the effect on natural resource use in agriculture in 2050 do we have the natural resource base to feed future populations this study gives a quantification of global land use water use and fertilizer use for the year 2050 for a complete diet and four different futures agriculture will need to develop substantially to feed future populations it is shown that there is a negative correlation between fertilizer use and land use which makes the necessity of incorporating both in such assessments clear water use increases relative to total production and this is going to be a problem unless drastic measures are taken the high wastage and high consumption of animal products in the developed regions are major contributors to the total global demand developing countries aspirations to such practices are a major factor in increases in diet demand as are population increases in those regions in creating a more sustainable food system a one solution approach will not do and solutions should combine supply side and demand side options demand side solutions should target wastage and animal product consumption on the supply side technological development and better feeding efficiency will increase yields feeding the future global population which is necessary to increase living standards worldwide will require a concerted effort

willing consumers or locked in policies for a sustainable consumption postmodern explanations of consumer behaviour stress social and psychological factors to the neglect of explanations based on structural issues such as the working life conditions which favour a work and spend lifestyle the conditions of urban living or the effects of pervasive marketing this paper argues that consumers may not be so keen and willing but are rather locked in by circumstances some of these circumstances are deliberately created by other interests and a policy to limit consumption must look for adequate means over a large and varied field in the end shorter working hours may be an important key to a more sustainable future 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

unemployment rate dynamics and persistent unemployment under rational expectations this paper develops a model of unemployment rate dynamics that provides an explanation of persistent cyclical unemployment that does not involve persistent expectational errors or other nonoptimizing behavior our results are based on the interaction of search dynamics and inventory adjustments an important element in these dynamics appears to be heterogeneity in the labor force which can be characterized as consisting of a relatively small group of high turnover individuals who comprise the bulk of normal unemployment and a larger group of low turnover individuals who dominate movements in cyclical unemployment our empirical results provide support for this theory as we demonstrate that the appropriately measured probability of becoming employed during a recovery falls relative to normal because of the unusually high proportion of low turnover individuals who have lost permanent jobs as aresult recovery is much slower than is indicated by normal relationships although each individual is searching optimally this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

pass through in retail and wholesale this paper studies how prices comove across products firms and locations to gauge the relative importance of retailer versus manufacturer level shocks in determining prices i make use of a large panel data set on prices for a cross section of retailers in the u s i analyze prices at the barcode or universal product code upc level for individual stores i find that only 16 of the variation in prices is common across stores selling an identical product 65 of the price variation is common to stores within a particular retail chain but not across retail chains while 17 is completely idiosyncratic to the store and product product categories with frequent temporary sales exhibit a disproportionate amount of completely idiosyncratic price variation my results suggest that most of the observed price variation arises from retail level rather than manufacturer level demand and supply shocks however the behavior of prices is difficult to relate to observed variation in costs and demand at the retail level this suggests that retail prices may vary largely as a consequence of dynamic pricing strategies on the part of retailers or manufacturers rather than static demand and supply shocks this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

three perspectives on sustainable food security efficiency demand restraint food system transformation what role for life cycle assessment achieving food system sustainability is a global priority but there are different views on how it might be achieved broadly three perspectives are emerging defined here as efficiency oriented demand restraint and food system transformation these reflect different conceptualisations on what is practically achievable and what is desirable underpinned by different values and ideologies about the role of technology our relationship with nature and fundamentally what is meant by a good life this paper describes these emerging perspectives and explores their underlying values highlights lca s role in shaping these perspectives and considers how lca could be oriented to clarify thinking and advance policy relevant knowledge it argues that more work is needed to understand the values underlying different approaches to the food sustainability problem this can shed light on why stakeholders disagree where there are genuine misunderstandings and where common ground is possible and ways forward agreed

commodity price inflation retail pass through and market power abstract when commodity prices rise wholesalers and retailers of products derived from basic commodities respond by passing along at least a portion of the price increase to consumers in this paper we examine whether firms respond differently to positive commodity price shocks than to negative commodity price shocks that is whether commodity price volatility alters market power we exploit recent volatility in food commodity prices over the period 2007 2010 to investigate how commodity price shocks translate into market power in two different vertically structured food product industries potatoes and fluid milk for potatoes we find both wholesale and retail market power decreases increases during periods of rising falling commodity prices moreover price cost margins widen a substantially greater degree in response to negative shocks than margins narrow in response to positive shocks indicating that commodity price volatility increases market power for fluid milk we find that market power likewise declines during periods of rising commodity prices however market power does not significantly change during periods of falling commodity prices suggesting that commodity price volatility decreases market power

food and life cycle energy inputs consequences of diet and ways to increase efficiency food consumption is one of the most polluting everyday activities when impacts during product life cycles are considered greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector are substantial and need to be lowered to stabilise climate change here we present an inventory of life cycle energy inputs for 150 food items available in sweden and discuss how energy efficient meals and diets can be composed energy inputs in food life cycles vary from 2 to 220 mj per kg due to a multitude of factors related to animal or vegetable origin degree of processing choice of processing and preparation technology and transportation distance daily total life cycle energy inputs for diets with a similar dietary energy consumed by one person can vary by a factor of four from 13 to 51 mj current swedish food consumption patterns result in life cycle energy inputs ranging from 6900 to 21 000 mj per person and year choice of ingredients and gender differences in food consumption patterns explain the differences up to a third of the total energy inputs is related to snacks sweets and drinks items with little nutritional value it is possible to compose a diet compatible with goals for energy efficiency and equal global partition of energy resources however such a diet is far from the swedish average and not in line with current trends

consumer prices the consumer price index and the cost of living after presenting major findings and recommendations the cpi commission reiterates the estimate of a 1 1 percentage point per annum upward bias it rejects the contention that the bls already makes substantial corrections for quality change that quality improvements and new products accrue only to the rich and that procedures to make more extensive quality adjustments valuations of new products and adjustments for commodity and outlet substitution are impractical the bias in the cpi can be sharply reduced as the authors detail in this paper coauthors are ellen r dulberger robert j gordon zvi griliches and dale w jorgenson

the aggregate effects of sectoral reallocations abstract can a one time permanent change in the fundamentals behind the sectoral composition of the economy prompt an aggregate downturn can this downturn be non negligible even if one uses us data to determine the relative size of gross vs net job flows and the importance of job creation costs can one consider the military build down of the 1990s as a plausible cause for the 1990 1991 recession do sectoral reallocations generate responses that are qualitatively similar to productivity shocks we use a variant of the mortensen pissarides 1994 review of economic studies 61 397 415 job creation destruction model calibrate it to us labor market data and run experiments that suggest one can answer yes to all these questions

the effects of a fat tax on french households purchases a nutritional approach this article assesses the effects of a fat tax on the nutrients purchased by french households across different income groups this is done by making a preliminary estimation of price elasticities using a complete demand system on household scanner data and by calculating nutrient elasticities using estimated price elasticities we find that a fat tax has small and ambiguous effects on nutrients purchased by french households and a slight effect on body weight in the short run with a greater effect in the long run such a tax generates substantial tax revenue but is highly regressive

stock market dispersion and unemployment abstract the sectoral shifts hypothesis advanced by lilien 1982 and davis 1987 suggests that unemployment is in part the result of resources being reallocated from declining to expanding sectors of the economy using u s data from 1931 to 1987 we test this hypothesis by constructing an index measuring the dispersion among stock prices from different industries we find that lagged values of this index significantly affect unemployment we show that the stock market dispersion index is less contaminated by aggregate demand influences than lilien s employment dispersion index which makes our test less vulnerable to the abraham and katz 1986 critique

national natural capital accounting with the ecological footprint concept abstract there is a growing consensus among natural and social scientists that sustainability depends on maintaining natural capital however progress to put this ecological condition to practice has been slow not least because of the inability of making these objectives measurable therefore to overcome this obstacle assessment frameworks for natural capital are needed this study presents a simple framework for national and global natural capital accounting it demonstrates using the example of italy an accounting framework which tracks national economies energy and resource throughput and translates them into biologically productive areas necessary to produce these flows this calculation has been applied to over 52 countries with this framework based on the ecological footprint concept human consumption can be compared with natural capital production at the global and national level using existing data

unemployment and vacancies with sectoral shifts recent analyses of unemployment vacancy series suggest that aggregate shocks rather than sectoral shocks are the primary factors responsible for unemployment fluctuations this inference follows from two widely held beliefs sectoral shocks induce only positive unemployment vacancy comovements while negative comovements are necessarily the result of aggregate demand shocks this paper describes an equilibrium matching model that identifies plausible circumstances in which neither assumption is correct thus suggesting that unemployment vacancy data are inconclusive interestingly this model s novel results are due to standard features in the contracting literature firms experience relative price shocks and negotiate contracts that prescribe temporary layoffs copyright 1994 by american economic association

the bare necessities how much household carbon do we really need the consumption patterns of western nations are generally deemed to be unsustainable yet there is little attempt to restrain either material throughput or income growth nonetheless in the face of the need to make deep cuts in carbon emissions for instance consumption restraint may be a perfectly legitimate response this paper explores the potential for a reduced consumption scenario in the uk constructed by assuming that households achieve a specific minimum income standard which is deemed to provide a decent life for each household type the minimum income standards are taken from a recent study for the joseph rowntree foundation and include not only subsistence commodities such as food warmth and shelter but also the means to participate effectively in society the joseph rowntree foundation study produced detailed household expenditure budgets for these income standards the paper uses an environmentally extended quasi multi regional input output model to estimate the greenhouse gas ghg emissions required in the production and distribution of all goods and services purchased according to these budgets our results show that average household ghg emissions in the uk would be around 37 lower in the reduced consumption scenario than they are currently we explore several implications of these findings including the need to change social norms around consumption the need for investment to improve the thermal performance of homes and the need to develop new transport infrastructures we also address the potential to reduce emissions below the level achieved in this scenario and discuss the implications for policy

cyclical fluctuations and sectoral reallocation abstract to investigate how sectoral demand shifts affect cyclical unemployment studies by murphy topel and loungani rogerson examine whether labor mobility rises in recession results are contradictory depending on a priori assumptions about unfinished unemployment spells this note uses monthly data from the early 1980s and a competing risks hazard approach to overcome this problem results confirm the loungani rogerson finding of higher respecialization in recession however the countercyclicality is fairly modest when estimated in an unbiased way

tracing the effects of agricultural commodity prices and food costs we estimate a system of product and input demand equations for food processing industries to trace the links among farm commodity prices food processing costs and food prices disembodied technical change which likely reflects increasing consumer demand for convenience and product variety has sharply reduced agricultural materials demand relative to most other food processing inputs this implies weakening impacts of farm price shocks on food prices but improving quality and falling relative prices for agricultural inputs in combination with increasing factor substitution has counteracted these forces to encourage greater usage of agricultural inputs in food processing and limit these trends food prices today often appear less responsive to farm price shocks than in the past a development sometimes attributed to failures in market institutions however powerful long run technological and social changes leading to adaptations in production processes and food consumption patterns have also altered the demand for primary agricultural materials by changing the structure of food processing industries the social shifts surrounding the expanded role of women in the labor force represent one striking example of such changes the fraction of married women in the labor force less than one third in 1960 rose sharply through the next three decades before stabilizing at around 61 in the 1990s such demographic shifts increased the demand for food products requiring less home preparation time which in combination with enhanced technology has led to more in plant processing of agricultural materials and likely a growing share of nonagricultural inputs in

integrating climate change and health into food policy an analysis of how climate change can affect food prices and population health abstract the inter related nature of food health and climate change requires a better understanding of the linkages and a greater alignment of policy across these issues to be able to adequately meet the pressing social and health challenges arising from climate change food price is one way through which climate change may affect health the aim of this study of the global and australian food systems is to provide a whole of system analysis of food price vulnerabilities highlighting the key pressure points across the food system through which climate change could potentially have the greatest impact on consumer food prices and the implications for population health we outline areas where there are particular vulnerabilities for food systems and food prices arising from climate change particularly global commodity prices agricultural productivity short term supply shocks and less direct factors such as input costs and government policies we use australia as a high income country case study to consider these issues in more detail the complex and dynamic nature of pricing mechanisms makes it difficult to predict precisely how prices will be impacted should prices rise disproportionately among healthy foodstuffs compared to less healthy foods there may be adverse health outcomes if less expensive and less healthy foods are substituted higher prices will also have equity implications with lower socio economic groups most impacted given these households currently spend proportionately more of their weekly income on food the ultimate objective of this research is to identify the pathways through the food system via which climate change may affect food prices and ultimately population health thereby providing evidence for food policy which takes into account environmental and health considerations

sectoral shifts stock market dispersion and unemployment in canada considerable attention has been given in the last ten years to estimation of the importance of sectoral shifts in explaining short term fluctuations in unemployment recent studies have used us stock prices data to develop indexes of sectoral shocks less affected by cyclical influence than lilien s employment dispersion index two indexes of sectoral shifts for canada based on the sectoral dispersion of stock prices growth rates are calculated these indexes are then used in unemployment equations incorporating variables measuring aggregate demand shocks and structural changes in order to assess the importance of sectoral and cyclical shocks in the determination of the canadian unemployment rate the estimation leads to the conclusion that the major recessions of 1981 82 and 1990 91 have been caused by aggregate demand shocks however both types of shocks contributed to the 1974 75 recession while the mild recession of 1980 was accompanied by an important sectoral shock estimations also show that the mo

three bubbles and a panic an explanatory review of recent food commodity price events abstract this paper is a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007 2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases extracted from a report to the chief scientific advisor to her majesty s government thirtle c piesse j 2008 an explanatory review of the world food commodity price events of 2007 2008 a report to the chief scientific advisor department for innovation universities and skills london the historical background shows that the price spike was much less severe than in the 1970s the conventional wisdom that prices of the main food commodities were falling prior to 2006 is questioned most ceased falling and were quite stable from the 1980s the paper separates the causes of the spike from the underlying changes driving the long run trends the literature on the causes of the spike is critically reviewed and summarised there is a reasonably broad consensus on most of the causes but much less on the impact of the depreciation of the us dollar there are also concluding speculations on the future

reference prices costs and nominal rigidities we assess the importance of nominal rigidities using a new weekly scanner dataset we find that nominal rigidities take the form of inertia in reference prices and costst defined as the most common prices and costs within a given quarter reference prices are particularly inertial and have an average duration of roughly one year even though weekly prices change roughly once every two weeks we document the relation between prices and costs and find sharp evidence of state dependence in prices we use a simple model to argue that reference prices and costs are useful statistics for macroeconomic

cyclical fluctuations and sectoral reallocation evidence from the psid abstract this paper documents the correlation between permanent sectoral reallocation and the business cycle using data from the michigan panel study of income dynamics we find that the outflow of workers from goods to services accelerates during recessions the flow from services to stable employment in surables accelerates during booms we also document the contribution of sectoral reallocation to total unemployment permanent switchers account for about a quarter of the total weeks of unemployment during booms this proportion rises to nearly 40 duing recessions

environmental sustainability in agriculture diet matters abstract there is no agreement that diet matters for environmental sustainability in the agriculture sector much current agriculture is unsustainable and worsening the environmental impact of agriculture degrades natural capital e g loss of topsoil waste and pollution of water nutrient loss extinction of species cattle raising is one of the most damaging components of agriculture livestock now eat about half of global grain production there is limited scope for improving food supply and what scope there is will further damage the environment all means to improve nutrition especially for the poor will be needed as population increases one such means is to improve diets of the rich by eating lower down the food chain while most people in the world thrive on mainly grain based diets carnivory is high in oecd and is increasing in ldcs in order to reduce food wastage and to improve health and food availability a food conversion efficiency tax is proposed the least efficient converters pork beef would be highly taxed more efficient converters poultry eggs dairy would be moderately taxed most efficient converters ocean fish would be taxed lowest grain for human food would not be taxed while coarse grains might be modestly subsidized non food agriculture also would be taxed highest on tobacco and on starches destined for alcoholic beverages produced from land suitable for food production

trimming the excess environmental impacts of discretionary food consumption in australia abstract tackling the overconsumption of discretionary foods foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs is central to aligning human and planetary health whilst the adverse health impacts of discretionary foods are well documented the environmental and broader sustainability impacts of these products deserve more attention especially since their consumption has been increasing in recent decades particularly amongst low income groups this paper presents a quantitative case study analysis of discretionary food consumption and the associated environmental impacts for households from different income groups in australia environmentally extended input output analysis is used to estimate the full life cycle environmental impacts of discretionary food consumption on the basis of household expenditures on average discretionary foods account for a significant 35 39 33 and 35 of the overall diet related life cycle water use energy use carbon dioxide equivalent and land use respectively these significant percentages provide further support for the need to incentivise diets that are both healthier and more sustainable including divestment from discretionary food products the study highlights the challenges ahead including the need for further research on food substitutions to minimise environmental and social impacts whilst maximising nutritional quality especially amongst poorer socioeconomic groups

consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food abstract vast amounts of land are required for the production of food but the area suitable for growing crops is limited in this paper attention is paid to the relationship between food consumption patterns and agricultural land requirements land requirements per food item that were determined in a previous study are combined with data on the per capita food consumption of various food packages varying from subsistence to affluent leading to information on land requirements for food large differences could be shown in per capita food consumption and related land requirements while food consumption expenditure and the physical consumption of specific foods change rapidly over time a difference of a factor of two was found between the requirements for existing european food patterns while the land requirement for a hypothetical diet based on wheat was six times less than that for an existing affluent diet with meat it is argued that in the near future changes in consumption patterns rather than population growth will form the most important variable for total land requirements for food trends towards the consumption of foods associated with affluent lifestyles will bring with them a need for more land lifestyle changes changes in consumer behavior on a household level can be considered as powerful options to reduce the use of natural resources such as agricultural land

rivalry in price and variety among supermarket retailers recent theoretical models of retail competition suggest that product heterogeneity is critical to retail price and variety strategies this article provides empirical evidence on supermarket retailers price and variety strategies using a nested constant elasticity of substitution nces modeling framework the model is estimated using chain level scanner data for four major grocery chains in a large urban west coast market the results show that retailers compete for market share using both price and variety while they all tend to follow moderately cooperative pricing strategies the extent to which they follow cooperative strategies in variety is less homogeneous

the scarcity syndrome that may affect us profoundly in years ahead after half a century of conventional wisdom that the farm problem was one of surplus today s perception is that the problem is shortage i call this the scarcity syndrome it has seeped into farmer attitudes economic analyses and legislation it has helped escalate farmland prices and the demand for credit it will probably profoundly affect commodity programs during the 1980s we are not sufficiently aware of the far reaching effects of this new attitude in this note i examine the scarcity syndrome its validity and effects

the rising disparity in the price of healthful foods 2004 2008 abstract nutrient dense foods that are associated with better health outcomes tend to cost more per kilocalorie kcal than do refined grains sweets and fats the price disparity between healthful and less healthful foods appears to be growing this study demonstrates a new method for linking longitudinal retail price data with objective nutrient based ratings of the nutritional quality of foods and beverages retail prices for 378 foods and beverages were obtained from major supermarket chains in the seattle wa for 2004 2008 nutritional quality was based on energy density kcal g and two measures of nutrient density calculated using the naturally nutrient rich nnr score and the nutrient rich foods index nrf9 3 food prices were expressed as 100 g edible portion and as 1000 kcal foods were stratified by quintiles of energy and nutrient density for analyses both measures of nutrient density were negatively associated with energy density and positively associated with cost per 1000 kcal the mean cost of foods in the top quintile of nutrient density was 27 20 1000 kcal and the 4 year price increase was 29 2 foods in the bottom quintile cost a mean of 3 32 1000 kcal and the 4 year price increase was 16 1 there is a growing price disparity between nutrient dense foods and less nutritious options cost may pose a barrier to the adoption of healthier diets and so limit the impact of dietary guidance nutrient profiling methods provide objective criteria for tracking retail prices of foods in relation to their nutritional quality and for guiding food and nutrition policy

seniority sectoral decline and employee retention an analysis of layoff unemployment spells we investigate the effect of tenure on employee retention under varying labor market conditions using a competing risks analysis of recall and new job acceptance applied to layoff unemployment spell data from waves 15 and 16 1982 83 of the panel study of income dynamics we find that adverse conditions sectoral employment decline significantly reduce the positive tenure effect on recall probabilities this result is consistent with firm default on delayed payment contracts and does not appear to reflect the effect of technological change on the value of firm specific investments

intersectoral labor mobility and the growth of the service sector one of the most striking changes in the u s economy over the past 50 years has been the growth in the service sector between 1950 and 2000 service sector employment grew from 57 to 75 percent of total employment however over this time the real hourly wage in the service sector grew only slightly faster than in the goods sector in this paper we assess whether or not the essential constancy of the relative wage implies that individuals face small costs of switching sectors and we quantify the relative importance of labor supply and demand factors in the growth of the service sector we specify and estimate a two sector labor market equilibrium model that allows us to address these empirical issues in a unified framework our estimates imply that there are large mobility costs output in both sectors would have been double their current levels if these mobility costs had been zero in addition we find that demand side factors that is technological change and movements in product and capital prices were responsible for the growth of the service sector

the role of prices in measuring the poor s living standards in this paper we revisit two pieces of conventional wisdom in the current debate about poverty paying close attention to the price data underlying these findings that the poor pay more than households of higher income for the goods and services they purchase and that poverty rates at least as measured by the u s census have remained essentially flat since the late 1960s raising questions about the success of the policies implemented to reduce poverty by examining scanner data on thousands of household purchases we find that the poor pay less not more for the goods they purchase and by extending the advances on price measurement in the recent decade back to the 1970s we find that current poverty rates are less than half of the official numbers

decomposition of hours based on extensive and intensive margins of labor abstract we decompose the underlying disturbances in total hours into three kinds disturbances that shift the level of employment in the long run those that change the sectoral composition of employment in the long run and those that cause temporary movement of hours our identifying restriction exploits the distinctive nature of the two margins of labor employment and hours per worker based on the postwar u s data we find that aggregate and sectoral disturbances are roughly equally important for the cyclical fluctuations of aggregate hours

assessing food value chain pathways linkages and impacts for better nutrition of vulnerable groups abstract this article offers insights into assessing the effectiveness of post farm gate agri food value chains at improving the nutrition intake of vulnerable groups it develops a conceptual framework integrating the value chain concepts with agriculture and nutrition and identifies key outcomes and requirements for value chains to be successful at delivering substantive and sustained consumption of nutrient dense foods by poor households other frameworks linking value chains with nutrition have been published but this article provides the analytical lens to assess post farm gate value chains to achieve improvements in the intake of nutritious foods by the target populations food must be safe to eat on a sustained basis nutrient dense at the point of consumption and consumed in adequate amounts on a sustained basis this shifts the focus to the role of public actions and policy in terms of shaping the functioning of food value chains by assessing the limits of what business can and cannot contribute in a given market context policy makers and other relevant stakeholders will be more capable of creating an appropriate institutional environment that shapes how value chains operate for the benefit of vulnerable target groups designing and implementing effective policies and strategies with respect to the role and use of market based interventions

sectoral shifts and the mobility of displaced workers when are microdata useful we show that reallocation shocks that change sectoral job offer probabilities can induce negative sectoral mobility unemployment co movements this challenges murphy and topel s nber macroeconomics annual 1987 2 11 58 interpretation that such patterns in us microdata constitute evidence against sectoral shifts in driving unemployment

economics food choices and nutrition abstract our goal in this paper is to examine the role and influence of economic factors defined rather broadly on consumer food choices and hence nutritional outcomes we attempt to do this in a non technical fashion we examine the role of prices especially as they relate to the affordability of food in the united states and as a policy lever income is analyzed as a driving force behind changes in eating habits in particular increasing the demand for convenience the role of time constraints as well as time preference are examined as links to healthy eating habits and as forces behind current trends in eating patterns information and knowledge are given prominent play as counter balances to economic forces driving eating habits we conclude with and examination into maternal nutrition knowledge and children s dietary quality

sectoral shocks and movement costs effects on employment and welfare abstract in this paper we provide a general equilibrium model of a two sector economy which accounts for low employment due to the incomplete responses of workers to sectoral shocks this model is used to reconcile the seemingly contradictory results of macro and micro evidence namely that sectoral shocks explain fluctuations of employment even though we do not observe cyclical movements of labor across sectors we further find that increasing the frequency of sectoral shocks holding the magnitude of the shocks fixed decreases total employment this allows us to account for the phenomena that the unemployment rate itself has been higher since 1970 a period characterized by an increased frequency of sectoral shocks we also study the theoretical implications of two opposite policies one which subsidizes mobility and the other which eliminates the partial insurance provided in the model the former increases employment and welfare while the latter increases employment but reduces welfare

determinants of food price inflation in finland the role of energy abstract the agricultural commodity crisis of 2006 2008 and the recent evolution of commodity markets have reignited anxieties in finland over fast rising food prices and food security little is known about the strength of the linkages between food markets and input markets such as the energy market using monthly series of price indices from 1995 to 2010 we estimate a vector error correction vec model in a cointegration framework in order to investigate the short term and long term dynamics of food price formation the results indicate that a statistically significant long run equilibrium relationship exists between the prices of food and those of the main variable inputs consumed by the food chain namely agricultural commodities labour and energy when judged by the magnitude of long run pass through rates farm prices represent the main determinant of food prices followed by wages in food retail and the price of energy the parsimonious vec model suggests that the dynamics of food price formation are dominated by a relatively quick process of adjustment to the long run equilibrium the half life of the transitional dynamics being six to eight months following a shock

food product composition consumer health and public policy introduction and overview of special section as efforts to improve diets in high income countries intensify attention has turned to how policies may influence diet composition the case studies in this special issue contribute to our understanding of how two main types of policies have influenced food product composition and dietary outcomes 1 policies affecting food manufacturers input costs and 2 information policy affecting competition research on the first type of policy is relatively new but suggests that us commodity policies would not be good policy instruments to influence diets except through the long run impacts of agricultural research research on the impacts of information policy continues to demonstrate that it can spur food industry competition to introduce healthier products but may not result in healthier diets international comparisons show where the us experience may have relevance for other high income countries

borrow and adjust fiscal policy and sectoral adjustment in an open economy should the government run fiscal deficits in response to an adverse external shock that warrants transfer of resources from production of nontraded to traded goodsq this article considers normative fiscal policy implications of sectoral adjustment costs in a two sector model with overlapping generations fiscal deficits benefit present generations by depleting foreign assets and slowing down the adjustment process we show that despite no nominal rigidities temporary fiscal deficits increase social welfare if adjustment costs prevent immediate sectoral reallocation of inputs if there are no adjustment costs the case for fiscal deficits vanishes copyright 2003 by the economics department of the university of pennsylvania and osaka university institute of social and economic research association

is cumulative growth in manufacturing productivity slowing down in the eu12 regions the cumulative causation in the relation between labour productivity and output growth known as verdoorn s law is empirically tested using data from 109 eu12 regions during the period 1977 2005 several specifications of verdoorn s law are put forward in this paper which attribute the process of cumulative causation to a series of factors including manufacturing agglomeration spatial interaction and responses to the problems of growth the findings suggest that although cumulative causation holds over this period the slowdown of its pace is nonetheless apparent post 1992 revisions in responses e g policy along with further research are thus recommended the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved

diet and the distribution of environmental impact abstract this paper examines the relationship between scale and distribution issues it is argued that since achieving a sustainable scale requires economic activity to stay within biophysical limits considerations of equity should not be limited to the distribution of monetary measures such as income but should include the distribution of scarce environmental services as well in order to make this point this paper examines how differences in diet across populations lead to inequality in the distribution of environmental impact first the distribution of food consumption across the world s population is examined using national data next ecological footprints are estimated in order to ascertain how differences in diet affect the distribution of environmental impact the results show that the meat intensive diet enjoyed by many in the industrialized world leads to a greater degree of inequality in the use of environmental services than is apparent from examination of the distribution of food consumption across countries

rising occupational and industry mobility in the united states 1968 97 we document and analyze the high level and the substantial increase in worker mobility in the united states over the 1968 97 period at various levels of occupational and industry aggregation this is important in light of the recent findings that human capital of workers is largely occupation or industry specific to control for measurement error in occupation and industry coding we develop a method that utilizes the psid retrospective occupation industry supplemental data files we emphasize the importance of our findings for understanding a number of issues such as the changes in wage inequality aggregate productivity job stability and life cycle earnings profiles

foodgrain price stabilisation in an open economy a cge analysis of variable trade levies for india within the present multilateral trading system the developing countries are obliged to gradually open up their agricultural sector to world markets as a result of this the effectiveness of conventional instruments of food price stabilisation will be greatly reduced how then is food price stability to be maintained in a liberalised open economy this article presents a general equilibrium evaluation of using variable trade levies on agricultural trade to stabilise foodgrain prices in response to exogenous shocks this is done for the indian economy with the help of a multi period computable general equilibrium cge model focused on agriculture and income distribution the model is used to analyse the sensitivity of the economy s growth income distribution and food security to external and internal shocks under varying degrees of trade openness the results show that both shocks are distributionally regressive and with external shocks become more so the more open the economy is wto consistent var