<p>Population
growth and increasing life standards contributed to a high demand for food
worldwide. Simultaneously, there is growing evidence that more food is being
lost or wasted through the different stages of the supply chain. In the
developed world, including the United States, consumer waste often constitutes
more than 60% of all food losses. </p>
This
dissertation explores the problem of consumer waste from three different
perspectives. In the first essay, a game-theoretic model of a direct interaction
between consumers and a retailer with monopoly power is developed to capture
the effects of dynamic pricing on the transfer of perishable inventory to
consumers. The retailer chooses its
optimal price taking into account both retailer and consumer preservation. As
long as the retailer’s inventory is well preserved, its price will be low
inducing consumers to stockpile and waste more food. Consumers may also waste
more if their own preservation level is relatively high. The second essay
focuses on governmental policies aimed at reducing consumer waste, such as a
tax and a subsidy. Using microeconomic analysis, closed-form solutions for a
social-optimal food waste tax and subsidy are derived. The government may
impose this tax to increase the cost of waste disposal for households while
using tax revenue to sponsor food preservation efforts. It is shown that the
tax might not be an effective instrument if the responsiveness of food waste to
this tax is low. Finally, the third essay investigates the impact of a
nutrition education program on school-cafeteria waste. This program was
implemented to promote the health benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables
among elementary school children. Comparing food waste data in the treatment
and control groups, we found no statistically significant evidence of either
increased selection or consumption of fruits and vegetables in the treatment
group.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/8297771 |
| Date | 15 August 2019 |
| Creators | Dmytro Serebrennikov (6858434) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/Three_essays_on_consumption_and_food_waste/8297771 |
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