Over the past two decades, product assortment and nutritional content in the ready-to-eat cereal industry have changed dramatically. Creating and analyzing a unique dataset to examine this evolution, we find that: 1) there exists a discrepancy between the nutrition quality of available products...

This paper investigates the certified organic handler sector, a specialized component of the middle part of the farm-to-table marketing chain, and documents the impacts of firm agglomeration (or firm clusters) on firm-level performance or firm-level decisions. After accounting for endogeneity in...

The objective of this study is to investigate how a firm's corporate governance affects its product market power. Adopting firms listed in the TSE and the OTC Exchange from 1996 to 2011, we find three main results. Firstly, better corporate governance leads to stronger product market power....

The typical analysis on the effectiveness of soda taxes relies on price elasticity estimates from static demand models, which ignores consumers inventory behaviors and their persistent tastes. This article provides estimates of the relevant price elasticities based on a dynamic demand model that...

Curbing obesity through taxation of certain beverage products has been a priority in the policy agenda across many U.S. jurisdictions. We assess the effectiveness of this highly debated policy instrument through two measures of its impact: the pass-through rate (the extent to which the tax...

Firms sometimes make selective or deceptive claims. Such claims can have negative consequences for consumers, especially if consumers are not fully informed and the claims are hard to verify. This paper aims to measure the decline in demand that a firm making such claims faces when caught. In...

All foods for sale in the US are now required to carry disclosure labels if they contain ingredients with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), but the longstanding and widespread market presence of voluntary non-GMO labels raises questions about their role. Past legislative and voter-initiated...

We apply a dynamic estimation procedure to investigate the effect of obesity on the demand for soda. The dynamic model accounts for consumers’ storing behavior, and allows us to study soda consumers’ price sensitivity (how responsive consumers are to the overall price) and sale sensitivity...

This dissertation consists of three chapters relating to various topics in empirical Industrial Organization. The first two chapters deal with the empirical treatment of sales in online markets. The third chapter explores the level of pass-through for taxes on soft drinks. In the first chapter...

Many incentives at the state and federal level exist for household adoption of re- newable energy like solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Although incentives make solar panels an attractive investment from a net present value perspective, the adoption rate is low, suggesting that households are...