IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/apecpp/v44y2022i1p350-363.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agribusiness and policy failures

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy J. Richards

Abstract

There is often a clear need for business regulation, as the market fails in many ways that are well understood. However, there are also important examples of policy failure, or cases where policy intervention seemed like a good idea at one time, but likely caused more problems than it solved. I consider three examples of failed regulatory interventions, in labor, antitrust, and disaster response. In reviewing the literature on each topic, some of which is our own, I hope to draw general conclusions regarding the value of careful economic analysis in policy design, particularly in the regulation of agribusiness enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy J. Richards, 2022. "Agribusiness and policy failures," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(1), pages 350-363, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:44:y:2022:i:1:p:350-363
    DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/aepp.13205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ian M. Sheldon, 2021. "Reflections on a Career as an Industrial Organization and International Economist," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 468-499, June.
    2. Barzel, Yoram, 1974. "A Theory of Rationing by Waiting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 73-95, April.
    3. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    4. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1986. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 285-300, October.
    5. Timothy J Richards, 2018. "Immigration Reform and Farm Labor Markets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1050-1071.
    6. Cosmin Ilut & Rosen Valchev & Nicolas Vincent, 2020. "Paralyzed by Fear: Rigid and Discrete Pricing Under Demand Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(5), pages 1899-1938, September.
    7. Alan B. Krueger & David Card, 2000. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1397-1420, December.
    8. Alberto Cavallo & Eduardo Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon, 2014. "Prices and Supply Disruptions during Natural Disasters," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 449-471, November.
    9. Richards, Timothy J. & Liaukonyte, Jura & Streletskaya, Nadia A., 2016. "Personalized pricing and price fairness," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 138-153.
    10. Julio J. Rotemberg, 2010. "Altruistic Dynamic Pricing with Customer Regret," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 646-672, December.
    11. Torberg Falch, 2010. "The Elasticity of Labor Supply at the Establishment Level," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 237-266, April.
    12. repec:bla:revinw:v:60:y:2014:i::p:s449-s471 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ryan Luchs & Tansev Geylani & Anthony Dukes & Kannan Srinivasan, 2010. "The End of the Robinson-Patman Act? Evidence from Legal Case Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(12), pages 2123-2133, December.
    14. Richards, Timothy & Liaukonyte, Jura & Nadia, Streletskya, 2016. "Personalized Pricing and Price Fairness," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235809, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Richards, Timothy J., 2018. "Immigration Reform and Farm Labor Markets," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274165, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Weitzman, Martin L, 1991. "Price Distortion and Shortage Deformation, or What Happened to the Soap?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 401-414, June.
    17. Koichi Yonezawa & Miguel I Gómez & Timothy J Richards, 2020. "The Robinson–Patman Act and Vertical Relationships," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 329-352, January.
    18. Roger D. Blair & Christina DePasquale, 2014. ""Antitrust's Least Glorious Hour": The Robinson-Patman Act," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 201-215.
    19. Timothy J. Richards, 2020. "Income Targeting and Farm Labor Supply," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(2), pages 419-438, March.
    20. Timothy J. Richards & Paul M. Patterson, 2005. "Retail Price Fixity as a Facilitating Mechanism," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(1), pages 85-102.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richards, Timothy J. & Rutledge, Zachariah, 2022. "Agricultural Labor and Bargaining Power," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322101, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Zachariah Rutledge & Pierre Mérel, 2023. "Farm labor supply and fruit and vegetable production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 644-673, March.
    3. Cho, Seung Jin & Lee, Jun Yeong & Winters, John V., 2020. "COVID-19 Employment Status Impacts on Food Sector Workers," ISU General Staff Papers 202006080700001107, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    4. Ioannis N. Pinopoulos, 2022. "Input Price Discrimination, Two‐Part Tariffs and Bargaining," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 1058-1090, December.
    5. Stephen F. Hamilton & Timothy J. Richards & Aric P. Shafran & Kathryn N. Vasilaky, 2022. "Farm labor productivity and the impact of mechanization," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(4), pages 1435-1459, August.
    6. Joshua A. Gerlick & Stephan M. Liozu, 2020. "Ethical and legal considerations of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making in personalized pricing," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(2), pages 85-98, April.
    7. Bonanno, Alessandro & Lopez, Rigoberto A., 2012. "Wal-Mart's monopsony power in metro and non-metro labor markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 569-579.
    8. Okudaira, Hiroko & Takizawa, Miho & Yamanouchi, Kenta, 2019. "Minimum wage effects across heterogeneous markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 110-122.
    9. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    10. Anna Priester & Thomas Robbert & Stefan Roth, 2020. "A special price just for you: effects of personalized dynamic pricing on consumer fairness perceptions," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(2), pages 99-112, April.
    11. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    12. Austan Goolsbee & Chad Syverson, 2023. "Monopsony Power in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Tracks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 257-290.
    13. Derk Bienen, 2002. "Mindestlohnreformen in Südamerika – ökonomische Rechtfertigung und praktische Umsetzung," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 090, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Rik Chakraborti & Gavin Roberts, 2023. "How price-gouging regulation undermined COVID-19 mitigation: county-level evidence of unintended consequences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 51-83, July.
    15. Marianna Kudlyak & Murat Tasci & Didem Tuzemen, 2019. "Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies," Working Papers 19-30R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 21 Apr 2022.
    16. Mark B. Stewart, 2004. "The Impact of the Introduction of the U.K. Minimum Wage on the Employment Probabilities of Low-Wage Workers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 67-97, March.
    17. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2022. "Competition and Pass-Through: Evidence from Isolated Markets," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 35-57, October.
    18. Mark D. Brenner, 2004. "The Economic Impact of Living Wage Ordinances," Working Papers wp80, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    19. Lemos Sara, 2005. "Political Variables as Instruments for the Minimum Wage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    20. Shirley, Peter, 2018. "The response of commuting patterns to cross-border policy differentials: Evidence from the American Community Survey," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-16.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:44:y:2022:i:1:p:350-363. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2040-5804 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.