Download or read book Essays on the Fluid Milk Industry written by Youngjune Kim and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial organization deals with how seller concentration, product differentiation, and conditions of entry affect firms' behavior and market perform. In particular, the U.S. fluid milk industry is characterized by concentration. As a result of mergers and acquisitions among fluid milk processors in the late 1990s, the national four-firm concentration ratio grew faster than any other food processing sector and it accounted for approximately 45% in the late 2000s. The U.S. fluid milk industry is also marked by co-operative associations. Marketing co-operatives might play a role in counterbalancing the processor's buyer power. In addition to concentration, an organic label is considered a key strategy for differentiating products in the fluid milk industry. As consumers are willing to pay a premium for the organic attribute, organic labels are commonly considered a profitable marketing strategy in the fluid milk industry. These two key features of the U.S. fluid milk industry, 1) concentration in milk processing and the existence of co-cooperatives and 2) a way of product differentiation, organic labeling, have led to using an empirical industrial organization approach to study these two issues in U.S. fluid milk industry. The first essay examines the role of upstream and downstream market power in determining the effect of potential supply shocks on price transmission. To do this, I develop a conceptual framework, which extends Villas-Boas and Hellerstein (2006)'s model of successive oligopoly, to illustrate the effect of supply shocks on price accounting for 1) market power and 2) sequential vertical-pricing games. A structural econometric model is employed to estimate demand, downstream and upstream firm's supply and market power parameters which are derived from the conceptual model. Using the estimated parameters, I simulate how market power impacts the effect of supply shocks on prices. The conceptual framework shows the following propositions. First, the effect of a negative supply shock on the change in output price is diminished by the degree of its' market power. The effect of upstream firms' market power on the change in upstream firms' output price is larger than that of downstream firms' market power on the change in downstream firms' output price. Second, the effect of a negative supply shock on the change in downstream firms' output price is diminished by the degree of upstream firms' market power. Third, the impact of downstream firms' market power on the change in upstream firms' output price caused by a negative supply shock is ambiguous. Fourth, the effect of a negative supply shock on the change in upstream firms' output is larger than on the downstream firms' output price. The empirical framework suggests that the assumption of perfect competition for upstream and downstream firms in the U.S. fluid milk industry is rejected. The simulation analysis indicates that perfect competition assumption overestimates the effect of supply shocks on both upstream and downstream firms' output prices. Thus, it is important to account for the presence of market power when considering the impacts of supply shocks. In the second essay, I investigate new econometric evidence on the economic value of organic labels in the fluid milk market from a producer's standpoint. To do this, a structural econometric model is used to estimate organic and conventional milk demand. Given the demand estimates, I simulate two counterfactual analyses in which 1) organic milk products are replaced by conventional milk products and 2) organic milk producers go out of business by 1) removing organic attributes from both consumer utility and marginal costs and 2) removing organic brands from the choice set. The demand estimates show that consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for organic milk products. Consumers' willingness to pay for the organic label is $2.47 per half gallon of milk. The counterfactual analyses suggest that the presence of organic label increases market share and producer surplus for organic milk brands by approximately 33 (when removing organic attributes) to 100% (when removing organic brands) while it decreases market share and producer surplus for conventional brands. Also, the impact on price, share, and producer surplus for conventional brands are greater when removing organic products from the choice set compared to removing organic attributes.
Download or read book Nature s Perfect Food written by E. Melanie Dupuis and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2002-02 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how Americans came to drink milk For over a century, America's nutrition authorities have heralded milk as "nature's perfect food," as "indispensable" and "the most complete food." These milk "boosters" have ranged from consumer activists, to government nutritionists, to the American Dairy Council and its ubiquitous milk moustache ads. The image of milk as wholesome and body-building has a long history, but is it accurate? Recently, within the newest social movements around food, milk has lost favor. Vegan anti-milk rhetoric portrays the dairy industry as cruel to animals and milk as bad for humans. Recently, books with titles like, "Milk: The Deadly Poison," and "Don't Drink Your Milk" have portrayed milk as toxic and unhealthy. Controversies over genetically-engineered cows and questions about antibiotic residue have also prompted consumers to question whether the milk they drink each day is truly good for them. In Nature's Perfect Food Melanie Dupuis illuminates these questions by telling the story of how Americans came to drink milk. We learn how cow's milk, which was associated with bacteria and disease became a staple of the American diet. Along the way we encounter 19th century evangelists who were convinced that cow's milk was the perfect food with divine properties, brewers whose tainted cow feed poisoned the milk supply, and informal wetnursing networks that were destroyed with the onset of urbanization and industrialization. Informative and entertaining, Nature's Perfect Food will be the standard work on the history of milk.
Download or read book Essays on Pricing and Policy in the U S Dairy Industry written by Charng-Jiun Yu and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dairy industry is one of the most important components in U.S. economy. Milk production added substantial value to the agricultural sector. In 2017, U.S. dairy farmers produced 38.1 billion dollars worth of milk. On the consumption side, Americans on average consume 244 pounds of dairy products in a year. Despite the significance of the U.S. dairy industry, several important economic issues in pricing and policy are not studied. With the improvement in data quality over the past decade, there is an emerging opportunity for empirical studies to analyze the U.S. dairy industry and provide economic insights to a more general scope. My dissertation provides empirical analysis to understand the pricing and policy issues for producers, retailers, and consumers in the U.S. dairy industry. Specifically, in the following three chapters I study the relationship between market power and farm-retail price transmission, the impact of environmental regulations on dairy farm management, and the relationship between price and perceived quality in consumer choice of cheese products. In the first chapter, I seek to understand the impact of market competitiveness on the degree of asymmetric price transmission and associated welfare implications. I estimate a kinked Almost Ideal Demand System for fluid milk products in 18 U.S. metropolitan areas. By conducting an asymmetric price transmission test, I find that cities with less competitive food retailing tend to exhibit asymmetric price transmission. The degree of price asymmetry and associated welfare loss are decreasing in the market competitiveness. The welfare analysis suggests that the welfare loss due to asymmetric price transmission is large in terms of the percentage of milk expenditures. The potential is for substantially higher future welfare loss given the ongoing consolidation in food retailing industry. In the second chapter, I quantify the impact of the Clean Water Act (CWA) on farm waste management practices of U.S. dairy concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). A double-hurdle model is employed to examine how dairy farmers adjust their practices in response to the major policy revision of the CWA in 2003. Using the 2000 and 2010 Agricultural Resource Management Survey data, I find that CAFO farmers who follow the management standards of the nutrient management plan (NMP) required by the CWA are more likely to implement manure storage after the policy revision. There are, however, no significant changes in storage capacity for those who have already adopted. Furthermore, CAFOs that fail to comply with NMPs did not make significant changes in storage capacity, land application of manure, and manure removal. The results suggest a heterogenous and limited impact of the CWA on waste management practices of dairy CAFOs. In the third chapter, I examine how prices affect consumers' perception of quality and consequently their product choices using individual consumers' purchase records in the U.S. cheese market. I hypothesize that price affects product choices by two channels: (i) a "pure price" effect directly affecting the purchase cost, and (ii) a "perceived quality" effect affecting the perceived product quality. In the empirical analysis, I complement the traditional mixed logit model with the conditions of purchasing behavior and utilize the Nielsen consumer panel and retail scanner data of the U.S. cheese markets from 2012 to 2014. The results suggest a strong perceived quality effect. With a 10% increase in the price of a cheese product, the corresponding choice probability would on average decrease by 5.4%, which consists of a 13.0% decrease due to higher purchase cost and a 7.6% increase driven by higher perceived quality. For approximately 10% of the cheese products, the ratios of the perceived quality elasticity to the total price elasticity are greater than 3.69; on the lower end, the ratios are lower than 0.24 for another 10% of the products. Such a large value is indicative of a large heterogeneity of the price impact on perceived quality across products. In addition, the impact of price on perceived varies across different types of households. Finally, I find that the perceived quality effect decreases with repeat purchases. These findings have significant implications for retailers' marketing strategy, government policy, and analysis of product competition.
Download or read book An Essay on the Regulation of the Press written by Daniel Defoe and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Review of Regionalism as an Issue in the U S Dairy Industry Background papers April 1988 written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Fluid Milk Industry and the Competition of Filled Milk written by and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Market Structure Institutions and Performance in the Fluid Milk Industry written by Alden C. Manchester and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Milk Price Support Program and Other Policies Affecting the U S Dairy Industry Background papers April 1988 written by National Commission on Dairy Policy (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Historical Scientific and Practical Essay on Milk written by Robert Milham Hartley and published by . This book was released on 1842 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Background Papers written by National Commission on Dairy Policy (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Supplement to Market Structure Institutions and Performance in the Fluid Milk Industry written by United States. Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Three Essays on Organic Milk Marketing and Consumer Purchase Behavior written by Yan Zhuang and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Government s Role in Pricing Fluid Milk in the United States written by C. N. Shaw and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An historical scientific and practical essay on Milk as an article of human sustenance etc written by Robert M. Hartley and published by . This book was released on 1842 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Brief Analysis of the Condition of the Fluid Milk Industry in New Jersey written by New Jersey Milk Industry Association and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Dairy Industry in the United States 1940 1941 written by Nellie Geneva Larson and published by . This book was released on 1942 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Barriers to Increased Consumption of Fluid Milk written by National Grange and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
