Selected Manuscripts and Working Papers

Job Market Paper: Rational Addiction to Ultra-Processed Food

In the Context of Extreme Consumer Heterogeneity

Abstract: Rational addiction models have long been pivotal in understanding addictive behavior, yet empirical investigations often overlook the complexities inherent in household-level consumption dynamics. Leveraging comprehensive scanner data from the Circana consumer network dataset and supplementary health data from the Medprofiler survey, this study provides a household-level analysis of rational addiction to ultra-processed food products and its implications for health outcomes. We introduce a novel hierarchical linear modeling strategy for estimating rational addiction models which assess evidence of rational addiction in consumption patterns at the individual household level. Our findings reveal significant heterogeneity of rational addiction across various food products and households, with implications for public health initiatives. Furthermore, we explore the correlation between addictive behavior and health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and mental health disorders. By adopting a micro-scale perspective, our study offers insights into the effectiveness of policy interventions aimed at curbing addictive consumption and improving public health outcomes. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature on rational addiction by offering empirically robust analysis and practical insights for informing policy interventions in the realm of public health economics.

Urban-Rural Differences in Consumer Demand for Local and Organic Food

Abstract: This study assesses consumer demand and willingness to pay for various attributes of eggs, including local and organic designations, using IRI consumer panel data and discrete choice demand methods. By constructing an alternative but practical definition of local food based on where the product is sold rather than where it originates from, this study is able to use household-level scanner data to assess the demand and willingness to pay for product attributes related to both local and organic foods. In addition, we use the geographic location of these households to investigate how our willingness-to-pay estimates vary across the urban-rural spectrum. We confirm that consumers are generally willing to pay a premium for organic eggs and while we show that consumers generally expect a discount for local eggs, more rural consumers and those who live in more agricultural areas are more willing to pay for local eggs.

The Effect of Nutrition Labelling on Fast-Food Nutritional Content

Abstract: The United States has implemented many policies to target obesity. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has mandated that restaurants must label the calorie content of the food they provide on menus and menu boards. Previous literature suggests that this policy will cause a small subset of consumers to improve the nutritional quality of the food they consume. Restaurants’ responses to the policy are not as well studied but existing literature suggests that menu items become slightly healthier after the introduction of various local policies. This paper seeks to assess the impact of a nationally-instituted nutrition labelling policy on fast-food nutritional content. We find evidence that restaurants both improve the healthfulness of pre-existing food items and introduce new food items of substantially lower nutritional quality.