Full Description
Winner of the 2017 Quality of Communication Award presented by The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
As the importance of food and nutrition becomes more widely recognized by practitioners and researchers in the health sciences, one persisting gap in the knowledge base remains: what are the economic factors that influence our food and our health?
Food and Nutrition Economics offers a much-needed resource for non-economists looking to understand the basic economic principles that govern our food and nutritional systems. Comprising both a quick grounding in nutrition with the fundamentals of economics and expert applications to food systems, it is a uniquely accessible and much-needed bridge between previously disparate scholarly and professional fields.
This book is intended for upper level undergraduates, graduate students, and health professionals with no background in economics who recognize that economics affects much of their work. Concerned because previous encounters with economics have been hampered by math hurdles? Don't be; this book offers a specialized primer in consumer economics (including behavioral economics of food consumption), producer economics, market-level analysis, cost-effectiveness, and cost-benefit analysis, all in an accessible and conversational manner that requires nothing more than middle-school math acumen.
Grounding these lessons in contemporary issues such as soft drink taxes, food prices, convenience, nutrition education programs, and the food environment, Food and Nutrition Economics is an innovative and needed entry in the rapidly expanding universe of food studies, health science, and their related fields.
Contents
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Preface
Part I: An Introduction to Nutrition Preface
1: Food, Nutrients, and Health: An Overview
2: Food, Nutrients, and Health: Some Data
Part II: The Economics Food Consumption Preface
3: Income and the Foundations
4: Income and the Importance of Substitution
5: Prices
6. Convenience and Time
7: Information and Preferences
8: Now or Later
9: Insights from Behavioral Economics
10: Neuroeconomics: Pointing Toward a Unifying Framework for Decision Making
Part III: The Economics Food Production Preface
11: An Overview of the Food System, Economic Systems, and Systems Theory
12: Profit and Supply for Farms and Firms
13: Production and Profit Beyond the Farm Gate
Part IV: The Determination of Food Prices and Quantities in Competitive Markets Preface
14: Demand and Supply: Prices and Quantities in a Competitive Market
15: Horizontally and Vertically Related Competitive Markets
Part V: Cost Effectiveness and Cost Benefit Analysis Preface
16: Cost-Effectiveness and Cost-Benefit Analysis
Appendix: Economic Methodology 101
References
Index
