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<p>Food safety is important to prevent foodborne illnesses that can negatively affect public health and the economy. Preventative measures can be taken by government agencies, food-related workers, and consumers to reduce the occurrence of such illnesses. This paper examines the impact of government policies on food safety from the perspective of consumers, restaurant employees and employers, and food processing workers. The first essay explores how food safety recalls affect consumer behavior. The second essay studies the impact of minimum wage policies on service quality in the restaurant industry. The third essay investigates the effect of minimum wage policies on product food safety in the meat and poultry processing industry. </p>

In this thesis I conduct a comparative analysis of the influence of socioeconomic actors, business and labor, on public policy in Germany and the United States, specifically public policy that has an impact on economic inequality. The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of how institutional constructs may determine the level of influence by different socioeconomic actors on public policy. In particular, I examine the link between institutional design and economic inequality, specifically the relative influence of business interests in varying types of capitalist economies and democratic systems, and assess those facets of institutional design that may facilitate the channeling of business influence in policy making. I explore institutional changes in the German political and economic system beginning in the late 1980s to determine whether these changes have altered the policy making process over time, and analyze similarities with institutional changes that have taken place in the United States beginning in the late 1970s to present. Further, I examine whether shifts in institutional design indicate that the German system is transitioning towards a more liberal model similar to that of the United States, and consider what effects this may have on the level of economic inequality in Germany. To conduct my analysis I use the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework; based on the IAD framework I create a conceptual map of the channels by which socioeconomic actors are involved in the policy making process. I evaluate the policy-making process in both formal and informal policy arenas. The policy areas analyzed include corporate governance, industrial relations, and tax, welfare and minimum wage policy during the selected time periods. The analysis shows that the institutional designs that produced the selected policies benefit business interests and may contribute towards economic inequality. The larger goal is to develop research that will build a theoretical foundation to help us identify how these systems may be improved to produce a more equitable allocation of economic resources.