Dissertation
CONSUMER ACCESS, CHOICES, AND SAFETY IN THE U.S. RETAIL FOOD INDUSTRY
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2020
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/111187
Abstract
This dissertation explores three critical aspects of the U.S. retail food industry: food safety concerns, consumers’ access to healthy food, and consumer preferences of product attributes. The first chapter develops a product differentiation model with exogenous residential sorting and empirically tests whether low-income areas are more likely to be exposed to the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes in grocery store delis. Using data on the prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes collected from grocery store delis, I find that the marginalized communities in the U.S. are in high food safety risk. I argue that a store’s census-tract income is useful in predicting prevalence of L. monocytogenes, and thus low-income status should be considered as a risk factor.
The second chapter utilizes machine-learning models—Random Forests to identify the factors that predict the access to healthy food in U.S. retail markets. I identify two binary measures from the modified Retail Food Environment Index: food deserts—tracts where no healthful-food retailers exist, and food swamps, where healthful-food retailers are outnumbered by unhealthy ones. My model optimally identifies ten demographic variables that detect food deserts and food swamps with prediction accuracy of 100% in sample and 72% out of sample. Thus, I argue that this model can be used to get a sensible prediction of access to healthful food retailers for any U.S. census tract. Results also suggest that food deserts and food swamps are intrinsically different and require separate policy attention.
The third chapter analyzes consumers’ valuations of apple attributes using a discrete choice framework by combining retail scanner data with sensory panels. I estimate own- and cross-price elasticities of 21 open and club apple varieties. My findings suggest that consumers are consistent over time in their tastes for apple attributes and rank them in the order of firmness, sweetness, juiciness, crispness, aroma, and acidity. Consumers of club apples are loyal to their choices; they may pay higher prices but are less likely to switch an open variety. On the other hand, open varieties are less expensive and traditionally occupy greater retail shelf space, but are easily substitutable in case of price increase.
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Details
- Title
- CONSUMER ACCESS, CHOICES, AND SAFETY IN THE U.S. RETAIL FOOD INDUSTRY
- Creators
- Modhurima Dey Amin
- Contributors
- Jill J McCluskey (Advisor)Ron C Mittelhammer (Committee Member)Karina Gallardo (Committee Member)Alan Love (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Economic Sciences, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 128
- Identifiers
- 99900581612301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation