Approximately 31 million children enroll in the National School Lunch Program and nearly 1/3 of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are considered obese. What if the school food environment made healthy food choices easier for children? One overlooked scalable alternative involves students...

Rational choice theory commonly assumes that the presence of unselected choices cannot impact which among the remaining choices is selected-often referred to as independence of irrelevant alternatives. We show that such seemingly irrelevant alternatives influence choice in a school lunch...

Using psychological terms such as cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, this study reveals how individual consumers inadequately process (food safety) information, pay limited attention to signals, and make purchase decisions that are bias towards their initial choices. While it is...

We use observational data from 22 elementary schools and over 48,000 child-day observations to examine the relationship between the number of fruit and vegetable items and the consumption patterns of children during school lunch. We find that each additional fruit or vegetable item that is...

Although many have proposed theories explaining trade promotion (TP) behavior by manufacturers, lack of data has prevented empirical assessment. We employ survey data to explore the effect of manufacturer and retailer bargaining power on the allocation of TPs in the U.S. food sector. The survey...

A biofuel blend mandate may increase or decrease consumer fuel prices with endogenous oil prices, depending on relative supply elasticities. Biofuel tax credits always reduce fuel prices. Tax credits result in lower fuel prices than under a mandate for the same level of biofuel production. If...

A key goal of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010 is to ensure that children have access to healthy foods in schools. While the new policy mandates that healthy items must be included on the lunch line—and even that children must take certain foods—there is concern both over whether...