Learning objectives
By the end of the course, students will acquire an understanding of the economic forces behind the functioning of food markets, as well as of the most important food policy instruments. Models and quantitative methods for the analysis of food systems and of the most relevant food policies will also be introduced to students. A special focus on the role of safety in the food market, risk behaviors and food safety policies will be provided
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
• Food supply and food demand: price, trade, technological progress
• The market for food safety
• Market failure and foodborne risks, asymmetric information and moral hazard
• Information economics and policy: the market for news
• Elements of behavioural economics: risk perception, risk attitudes and consumer behaviour under uncertainty
• A taxonomy of food policies: market vs. information measures
Information policies and social marketing
Fiscal policies: taxes and subsidies
Regulations and food standards
Trade measures and non-tariff barriers
• Quantitative policy analysis and empirical case studies: statistical and economic models for policy analysis and evaluation will be presented through applied case studies from the academic and grey literature
Full programme
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Bibliography
The course is based on lecture notes and chapters/articles provided through the e-learning platform
Teaching methods
The course consists of a combination of theoretical lectures, applied case studies and quantitative tutorials.
This course provides a set of case studies on the economics and policy of food safety. The e-learning platform will enable access to interactive contents, data and case studies, Stata commands.
Assessment methods and criteria
During the course, students will be provided with case studies from selected scientific articles and will be required to write an essay dealing with the economic and policy analysis.
For those students who do not deliver the essay, or fail, it will be possible to take an oral exam with multiple-choice and open-ended questions on the foundations of food economics and policy, and on the interpretation of a case study.
Other information
FAO - Food and Agriculture Statistics
https://www.fao.org/food-agriculture-statistics/statistical-domains/economics/data/en/
Economic impacts of local and regional food systems – Data warehouse
https://localfoodeconomics.com/data/access-the-data/
CABI - Agricultural Economics Database
https://www.cabi.org/publishing-products/agricultural-economics-database/
OECD - Data on food systems
https://www.oecd.org/food-systems/data/
European Commission – Farm economics
https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/FarmEconomyFocus/FarmEconomyFocus.html
US Department of Agriculture – Data products
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/
FRED – Economic data
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=food
vam food security analysis – Economic explorer
https://dataviz.vam.wfp.org/economic_explorer/prices
To be booked by sending an e-mail to: annalisa.stacchini2@unibo.it.
2030 agenda goals for sustainable development
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