In December of 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the cessation of beef imports by the largest traditional beef trading partners with the United States, resulting in immediately realized losses to the U.S. industry. This thesis evaluates the short- and long-term impact this discovery and subsequent policies had on the global beef market. We utilize market share analysis to examine the loss realized by the U.S. over a 13-year time frame, then employ a log-linear gravity model with fixed effects to quantify the changes in global export and import values and quantities using a novel bilateral trade database spanning 16 years. We find that the policies implemented immediately on discovery of the single BSE case were often slow to be rescinded even though additional related cases of BSE were not found in the United States. We also find that the removal of said policies does not guarantee full reentry of U.S. beef products, even after a lag of several years. Finally, we find that both traditional and newly emerging suppliers of beef and beef products contributed to the slow reentry of U.S. beef within critical markets. The losses and implications of the aforementioned policies detailed within this thesis suggests a different approach be undertaken by regulators should another similar threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future. / Master of Science / This thesis evaluates the impact of the 2003 discovery of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, widely known as “mad cow disease”, within the state of Washington. This event had a significant immediate and lasting negative impact on international beef trade, and was especially damaging to U.S. producers. Upon the announcement, many of the largest traditional importing nations of U.S. beef halted all purchases in order to protect their domestic food supplies. While extensive research has been produced looking at the immediate impact to U.S. producers, no similar study exists that exhaustively looks at both the short- and long-term impact on the global market for beef. We find that the policies put into place were unnecessary and highly destructive to U.S. producers, and beneficial to many of the largest competitors in the global beef market. Furthermore, our main findings indicate that the removal of these policies did not quickly allow the reentry of U.S. exports to these traditional markets. The results of this paper suggests a different approach be taken by policymakers should another threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/74430 |
| Date | 25 January 2017 |
| Creators | Jordan, Steven Earl |
| Contributors | Agricultural and Applied Economics, Grant, Jason H., Peterson, Everett B., Orden, David R. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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