Consumer Behavior and Environmental Policy: Applications to Issues in Food Waste and Organics Recycling

Abstract

A large proportion of the food produced in the United States is wasted throughout the supply chain, with households accounting for the highest proportion. In Chapter 1, building on the existing literature, this paper develops a structural model to determine the economic relationship between household food waste reduction efforts, organics recycling efforts, and the opportunity cost of time in a public goods framework. In Chapter 2, we classify consumers in distinct classes dictated by their food related routines such as grocery shopping and kitchen management. We then investigate the roles of products attributes, especially cosmetic appearance and expiration dates, on food waste tendencies across these different classes of consumers. We examine whether underlying risk preferences and stated risk perceptions have an impact on those food waste propensities. In addition to prevention strategies that curb the negative impacts of food waste, recycling presents an opportunity to convert environmentally harmful materials into valuable economic downstream products such as compost. In chapter 3, we conduct a randomized control trial to examine the impact on information on organics recycling behavior and food waste generation tendencies in a local community.