American Journal of Agricultural Economics

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax017pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax018pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax019pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax020pmid: N/A

Moschini, GianCarlo; Lapan, Harvey; Kim, Hyunseok

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax041pmid: N/A

We construct a tractable multi‐market equilibrium model designed to evaluate alternative biofuel policies. The model integrates the U.S. agricultural sector with the energy sector and it explicitly considers both U.S. ethanol and biodiesel production. The model provides a structural representation of the renewable fuel standard (RFS) policies, and it uses the arbitrage conditions defining the core value of renewable identification number prices to identify the relevant competitive equilibrium conditions. The model is parameterized, based on elasticities and technical coefficients from the literature, to represent observed 2015 data. The model is simulated to analyze alternative scenarios, including repeal of the RFS, projected 2022 RFS mandates, and optimal (second‐best) mandates. The results confirm that the current RFS program considerably benefits the agriculture sector, but also leads to overall welfare gains for the United States (mostly via beneficial terms of trade effects). Implementation of projected 2022 mandates, which would require further expansion of biodiesel production, would lead to a considerable welfare loss (relative to 2015 mandate levels). Constrained (second‐best) optimal mandates would entail more corn‐based ethanol and less biodiesel than currently mandated.

Just, David R.

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax054pmid: N/A

Moschini, GianCarlo; Lapan, Harvey; Kim, Hyunseok

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax055pmid: N/A

Bellemare, Marc F.; Çakir, Metin; Peterson, Hikaru Hanawa; Novak, Lindsey; Rudi, Jeta

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax034pmid: N/A

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, one‐quarter to one‐third of all the food produced worldwide is wasted. We develop a simple framework to systematically think about food waste based on the life cycle of a typical food item. Based on our framework, we identify problems with extant measures of food waste and propose a more consistent and practical approach. In so doing, we first show that the widely cited, extant measures of the quantity and value of food waste are inconsistent with one another and overstate the problem of food waste. By misdirecting and misallocating some of the resources that are currently put into food waste reduction efforts, this overstatement of the problem could have severe consequences for public policy. Our framework then allows documenting the points of intervention for policies aimed at reducing the extent of food waste in the life cycle of food and the identification of interdependencies between potential policy levers.

Qi, Danyi; Roe, Brian E.

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax050pmid: N/A

Many countries strive to reduce food waste, which deprives hungry people of nutrition, depletes resources, and accounts for substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Composting and other food waste recycling technologies that divert food waste from landfills mitigate the environmental damages of food waste disposal and have grown in popularity. We explore whether consumer knowledge that the environmental damage created by their food waste will be mitigated by recycling technologies undermines personal food waste reduction behavior. Subjects in a dining situation are randomly assigned whether or not they receive information about the negative effects of landfilling food waste and whether they are told that uneaten food from the study will be composted or landfilled. We find that providing information about the negative effects of food waste in landfills significantly reduces the total amount of solid food waste created when compared to a control situation that features neither a food waste reduction nor a food waste recycling policy. However, if subjects are also informed that food waste from the study will be composted, the amount of solid food waste generated is significantly greater than if only the food waste reduction policy were implemented. This suggests a crowding out effect or informational rebound effect in which promoting policies that mitigate the environmental damages of food waste may unintentionally undermine policies meant to encourage individual consumer food waste reduction. We discuss key policy implications as well as several limitations of our experimental setting and analysis.

Debnam, Jakina

doi: 10.1093/ajae/aax056pmid: N/A

Early evidence from household‐level surveys suggests that the one‐cent‐per‐ounce tax on sugar‐sweetened beverages that took effect on March 1, 2015, in Berkeley, California, has decreased consumption of sugar‐sweetened beverages dramatically. Even if these findings are robust, the public policy implications of expanding the Berkeley soda tax policy to a national level are complicated by selection effects inherent in the populations of both voters and consumers. We find that consumption responses related to the tax interact nontrivially with consumer heterogeneity. Some of these responses directly counter the public policy goals of a soda tax. For example, high‐consuming households are less price sensitive and therefore less responsive to price changes following a tax. Further, “reactance” among high‐consuming populations led to increases in soda consumption immediately following the passage of the tax, partially mitigating reductions in soda consumption.