Previous research links organic purchasing motivations to personal and family health. We conduct a national survey to explore whether this preference intensifies when preparing family meals, especially during Thanksgiving. We find that approximately 83% of consumers change their consumption habits for Thanksgiving, with a notable preference for organic products. Results from the choice experiment indicate willingness to pay premiums for Thanksgiving-themed items, especially those with USDA-certified organic or certified naturally grown labels. These findings underscore policy initiatives that strengthen consumer understanding of organic certifications and support producers in securing them, capitalizing on the seasonal demand surge.

Compared to other policy instruments that aim to change consumer behavior, information provision is perhaps the least controversial. An important question is how information in the form of carbon labels can contribute to direct food consumption toward reduced climate impact. From a policy guidance perspective, there is a need to identify how the labeling strategy affects consumers’ ability to identify lower emitting food products and the behavioral change due to carbon information. Key aspects of a carbon label are discussed, as well as the implications of different labeling schemes. Drawing on economic and behavioral theories, we propose that, to assist consumers in identifying changes in consumption that contribute to significant reductions in their climate impact, a carbon label must enable comparisons between product groups and not only within narrowly defined product groups. This suggests mandatory labeling, since producers of high-emission products are less likely to display such labels. However, it is important to consider both costs and benefits of labeling schemes and to consider complementing labeling with other policy instruments.

Question effects are important when designing and interpreting surveys. Question responses are influenced by preceding questions through ordering effects. Identity Theory is employed to explain why some ordering effects exist. A conceptual model predicts respondents will display identity inertia, where the identity cued in one question will be expressed in subsequent questions regardless of whether those questions cue that identity. Lower amounts of identity inertia are found compared to habitual inertia, where respondents tend to give similar answers to previous questions. The magnitude of both inertias is small, suggesting they are only minor obstacles to survey design.

There is a shift in livestock auction sales in consolidation of live markets and movement toward virtual marketplaces. We examine buyer preferences for nonracing stock-type horses sold through virtual auctions to better understand how animals are sold and their valuation. A shift towards online sales of equine has impacted the number of potential buyers through increased exposure to sale horses. Using data collected from online auctions, we estimate factors influencing propensity to sell as well as price determinants in this market platform. We find many factors contribute to the likelihood of a horse selling and to the final sale price.

We investigate food preference changes in Russia that may have resulted from political, economic, and other changes. Our empirical framework utilizes advances in consumer theory and exploits provincial-level panel data on food consumption and supply shifters to identify price and income effects. Our findings indicate that consumers underwent a structural preference change that began in 2007 and continued into 2014. To illustrate the magnitude of this change, we contrast economic effects for select food commodities across regions. The new insights will be useful in designing timely and effective food and trade policies, as well as informing strategy decisions of agribusiness industry players.

Price elasticities and flexibilities for frozen dessert products were estimated from weekly scanner data, with emphasis on functional form selection, system misspecification testing, and endogeneity testing. Reciprocals of elasticities and elasticity matrix inversion were invalid means of obtaining flexibility estimates, leaving direct estimation as the only viable, albeit resource-intensive, approach.

With this study, we investigate the effects of changes in economic factors on body weight by constructing a utility theoretic model. The model is empirically estimated by combining data on individuals' body weight, demographic and physical activity information, and state-level measures pertaining to the prices of food away from home, food at home, and wages. By combining these data sources, we aim to estimate directly the weight effects of price and income changes. The empirical analysis suggests that decreasing the price of food at home could decrease body weight, a finding which has important public policy implications.

We generalise the standard joy-of-giving bequest motive by including inter vivos gifts. Within a life-cycle framework, we analyse the implications of the choice of different discount factors for the utility of gifts and bequests. For a linear utility of giving, we characterise the gift and bequest pattern of a liquidity constrained individual over the life-cycle. We find that discounting at the interest rate is very convenient as the linear utility parameter can be interpreted as a summary measure for the strength of the motive of giving, net of all gift and bequest timing issues over the life-cycle.

L'article applique à la micro-économie une distinction classique en philosophie du langage, celle des propositions analytiques et synthétiques. Un article ultérieur la rapprochera de la distinction épistémologique des connaissances a priori et a posteriori. On commence par reprendre les définitions principales de l'analytique et du synthétique, et l'on rejette les objections célèbres que Quine a dirigées contre elles. On montre ensuite comment ces définitions opèrent sur la théorie des biens Giffen et des biens substituts. La distinction de l'analytique et du synthétique permet de clarifier des options que les micro-économistes laissent implicites, au risque de tomber dans des pièges sémantiques; en l'occurrence, elle vient renforcer la critique déjà faite de la définition hicksienne des substituts. A titre annexe, on montre que la méthodologie économique identifie incorrectement les propositions analytiques aux tautologies, et les propositions synthétiques à celles qui sont testables.