Effects of U.S. Public Agricultural R&D on U.S. Obesity and its Social Costs

Julian Alston, Abigail Okrent () and Joanna Parks

No 152174, 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society

Abstract: How much has food abundance, attributable to U.S. public agricultural R&D, contributed to the high and rising U.S. obesity rates? In this paper we investigate the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D on food prices, per capita calorie consumption, adult body weight, obesity, public health-care expenditures related to obesity, and social welfare. First we use an econometric model to estimate the average effect of an incremental investment in agricultural R&D on the farm prices of ten categories of farm commodities. Next, we use the econometric results in a simulation model to estimate the implied changes in prices and quantities consumed of nine categories of food for given changes in research expenditures. Finally, we estimate the corresponding changes in social welfare, including both the traditional measures of changes in economic surplus in markets for food and farm commodities, and changes in public health-care expenditures associated with the predicted changes in food consumption and hence obesity. We find that a 10 percent increase in the stream of annual U.S. public investment in agricultural R&D in the latter half of the 20th century would have caused a modest increase in average daily calorie consumption of American adults, resulting in small increases in social costs of obesity. On the other hand, such an increase in spending would have generated very substantial net national benefits given the very large benefit-cost ratios for agricultural R&D.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy; Public Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ino and nep-nps
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Related works:
Journal Article: Effects of U.S. Public Agricultural R&D on U.S. Obesity and its Social Costs (2016)
Working Paper: Effects of U.S. Public Agricultural R&D on U.S. Obesity and its Social Costs (2013)
Working Paper: Effects of U.S. Public Agricultural R&D on U.S. Obesity and its Social Costs (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aare13:152174

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.152174

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