The primary objective of this dissertation is to determine Hispanic consumers’ preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for grass-fed beef. Two hundred and thirty-one Hispanic consumers in four experiment sites in Virginia (Galax, Roanoke, Richmond, and Blacksburg) participated in an experimental economics laboratory procedure. Taste tests and visual evaluations were conducted to understand Hispanic consumers’ sensory preferences for grass-fed beef in comparison to conventional grain-fed beef. A contingent valuation method, Multiple Price Lists (MPL) was used to measure Hispanic consumers’ WTP for grass-fed beef. In the study, MPL was put into a non-hypothetical environment due to real products, real money, and actual transactions involved. A bivariate Probit model was estimated to determine Hispanic consumers’ visual and taste preferences for grass-fed beef and to explore the relationship between their expected and experienced quality of grass-fed beef. A two-step decision process examined Hispanic consumers’ WTP and investigated the factors influencing their valuations on grass-fed beef. Approximately 50% of Hispanic consumers sampled preferred grass-fed to conventional grain-fed beef steak and the vast majority of grass-fed preferring consumers were willing to pay a price premium for it. Hispanic consumers were able to distinguish the appearance and taste between grass-fed and conventional grain-fed beef steaks. A positive correlation between visual and taste preferences for grass-fed beef was captured. / Ph. D.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter titled ``U.S. Grass-fed Beef Price Premiums" examined monthly retail-level price premiums for grass-fed beef (relative to conventional grain-fed beef) in the U.S. from 2014 through 2021. We found that premiums were heterogeneous, with premium cuts (such as sirloin steak, tenderloin, ribeye, and filet mignon) enjoying the highest premiums. Premiums were not consistent with price levels, as the lowest premiums were observed for short ribs, skirt steak, and flank steak. Our findings suggest that grass-fed beef price premiums were negatively affected by the consumption of food away from home. Changes in income, increased information about taste, protein and minerals, fat, revocation of the USDA grass-fed certification program in 2016 and COVID-19 pandemic, also affected premiums for several individual cuts. Premiums were not sensitive to changes in information about climate change. The second chapter, ``Impact of Animal Disease Outbreaks on The U.S. Meat Demand'', examined the impact of the mad cow (BSE) and bird flu (AI) outbreaks on the demand for beef, pork, and broilers in the U.S from 1997 to 2019. Using time-varying elasticities obtained from a Rotterdam model with animal disease cases, we found that BSE outbreaks reduced beef consumption by 0.64 percent and increased pork consumption by 2.34 percent, on average. While BSE outbreaks reduced beef demand, these effects were short lived and did not extend beyond one quarter. On the other hand, broiler consumption decreased during the HPAI outbreaks while beef and broiler consumption increased after such outbreaks. Our time-varying cross-price elasticities indicated that substitution between beef and broilers and beef and pork strengthened after Quarter 4 of 2003. The third chapter is titled ``Impact of North American Mad Cow Disease Outbreaks on The U.S. Cattle Futures". Our study developed a distributional event response model (DERM) framework to show the duration and magnitude of market responses of the U.S. cattle futures market during episodes of mad cow disease (BSE) in North America between 2010 and 2019. Our results indicated that the 2017 U.S. BSE outbreak reduced the returns of live cattle futures. Additionally, the average duration of the BSE event response was about 8.5 days. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation focused on the price analysis of the U.S. livestock market. The first chapter analysed the pattern of grass-fed beef price premiums measured as the difference between grass-fed beef price and conventional beef price. We mainly explored how the premiums were affected by consumers' income, food consumption away from home, and information on climate change, beef taste, and nutrition. We found that consumption of food away from home reduced the grass-fed beef price premiums. In addition, increased information about taste, protein and minerals, fat, and COVID-19 pandemic, could also affected the grass-fed premiums for several individual cuts. The second chapter explored how mad cow diseases and bird flu diseases affected the demand for beef, pork, and chicken. We particularly investigated how each disease outbreak affected the meat demand. My result showed that in the presence of mad cow diseases in the U.S., people bought more pork. This result that retailers should have higher pork demand when mad cow diseases are detected. The third chapter explored how mad cow diseases in North America affected the U.S. live cattle futures. We showed that the U.S. mad cow disease in 2017 reduced the returns of U.S. cattle futures and this impact lasted about 8.5 days. Simultaneously, we found that mad cow disease outbreaks in Canada did not significantly affect the U.S. cattle futures.