PROJECT IMPACTS AND RESEARCH RESULTS

Project Impacts:

Executive Summary of the NE-165 Project: 1996-2002

Executive Summary of the NE-165 Project: 1991-1996

Competitive Strategy: Conference Activity

Food Safety and Other Quality Attributes: Conference Activity

Data Development

Research Collaboration and Productivity

Research Results:

The Economics of HACCP (1998)

Consolidation in the Meat Sector (1999)

Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy (1999)

The American Consumer in the Changing Food System (2000)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR 1996-2002

NE-165 (http://www.umass.edu/ne165/) ended in September 2002 after 16 years of operation. During its life, NE-165 became nationally and internationally recognized as the leading source of policy relevant economic research on the industrial organization of the food system; on the impacts of changes in strategies, technologies, consumer behavior, and policies on the economic performance of the food system; and on how private and public strategies influence improvement in food safety and other quality attributes. At its end in 2002, NE-165 had 114 members from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, and New Zealand. The hallmark of NE-165 was to provide an organizational and human infrastructure that allowed economists to make their work more policy relevant through interaction with policy makers and regulators, while the policy makers and regulators gained better direct access to economic research relevant to their work.

During the last 6 years of the Project (October 1996 to September 2002), NE-165 was sole organizer or co-organizer of 7 research conferences, while 9 books or special journal editions were published during this period as a result of these and earlier NE-165 conferences. The NE-165 Termination Report gives complete details on these activities and of the impressive publication output of Project members. NE-165’s work focused on contributing to the understanding of developing trends in the food system, including industrialization and consolidation in the agricultural, processing, and retailing sectors; introduction of new quality assurance systems such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP); the rapid growth of agricultural biotechnology; changes in domestic and international food demand; and the use of economic analysis in the risk management decisions of governments. NE-165 was a pioneer is making its output easily accessible to researchers around the world through its internet site and by posting papers on AgEcon Search. The Project was supported by NE-165's core research group at the Food Marketing Policy Center, Universities of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Major accomplishments in 1996-2002 and their impacts include:

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

FOOD QUALITY (WITH EMPHASIS ON FOOD SAFETY)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR 1991-1996

The NE-165 Project's goal is to contribute to the quality of private decision-making by companies operating in the food production, processing, and distribution industries and to the effectiveness of government's policy design and evaluation for these industries. Its two areas of research focus during 1991-96 were the impacts on food system performance (quality and price of products offered to consumers, efficient operation of the food processing and distribution system, farmers' access to markets) of:

Over 80 researchers from more than 30 universities and government agencies participated in the project, supported by NE-165's core research group at the Food Marketing Policy Center, Universities of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Major accomplishments in 1991-1996 and their impacts include:

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

FOOD QUALITY (WITH EMPHASIS ON FOOD SAFETY)

COMPETITIVE STRATEGY: CONFERENCE ACTIVITY

NE-165 organized or co-organized conferences and published several books (see publications list) on related aspects of competitive strategy:

June 1991: Competitive Strategy Analysis in the Food System

June 1992: Competitive Strategy Analysis for Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives

June 1994: Interactions Between Public Policies and Private Strategies in the Food Industries

June 1995: Vertical Coordination in the Food System

July 1995: Food Retailer-Manufacturer Competitive Relationships in the EU and USA

June 1996: Strategy and Policy in the Food System: Emerging Issues

February 1999: Consolidation in the Meat Sector

June 1999: Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy

May 2000: The American Consumer in the Changing Food System

These conferences laid the groundwork for broad-ranging analyses of links between private strategies such as vertical integration or advertising and the operation of food markets.

FOOD SAFETY AND OTHER QUALITY ATTRIBUTES: CONFERENCE ACTIVITY

NE-165 Project members were national and international leaders in the development of all aspects of analysis of the economics of food safety. They systematically built work in this area through a series of organized or co-organized conferences and books (see publications list):

June 1990: The Economics of Food Safety

June 1993: Valuing Food Safety and Nutrition

Jan. 1995: Tracking Foodborne Pathogens from Farm to Table: Data Needs to Evaluate Control Options

June 1995: Economics of Reducing Health Risk from Food

June 1996: Strategy and Policy in the Food System: Emerging Issues

June 1998: Economics of HACCP: New Studies of Costs and Benefits

June 1999: Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy

May 2000: The American Consumer in the Changing Food System

June 2000: Global Food Trade and Consumer Demand for Quality

September 2000: Valuing the Health Benefits of Food Safety

May 2001: Setting Food Safety Priorities: Toward a Risk-Based System

NE-165 members have made particular contributions to developing reliable methodology for measuring how much value consumers and society place on food safety; conducting benefit/cost analysis of new food quality regulations; and analyzing the impact on new trade agreements on domestic food safety and the international competitiveness of food industries.

DATA DEVELOPMENT

NE-165's Core Research Group at the Universities of Connecticut and Massachusetts purchased and developed databases for use by Project researchers that created a strong basis for cooperative work. These databases included special tabulations of the Census of Manufactures and Census of Retailing; a data set compiling advertising expenditures for several thousand food products from Leading National Advertisers; a merger database for food manufacturing, wholesaling, and retailing; and a scanner database for grocery products including price, product movement, and other data.

RESEARCH COLLABORATION AND PRODUCTIVITY

NE-165 developed a distinctive framework for collaborative work that contributed greatly to the productivity of its members. Project members met annually to discuss developments in their work and identify cost effective, collaborative efforts and teams of researchers to work on these issues. For example, researchers working on product differentiation in the food industry teamed up with others analyzing whether different levels of food safety can be effectively marketed in the United States. The overall group planned the topics of conferences, symposia, and other presentations that forwarded the collaborative research agenda of the Project and its members.

Conferences, workshops, and symposia were carefully organized by NE-165 to generate and support collaborative work. Through a combination of calls for papers, invited papers, and research round tables, conference organizing committees brought researchers together to produce collaborative work for presentation on a defined schedule. The conferences were organized to generate joint papers between Project members using similar research techniques and to juxtapose complementary or potentially conflicting methodologies so they could be compared effectively. This structure generated published joint work and, very importantly, facilitated an intellectual collaboration that furthered the research agenda in ways that go far beyond joint publications. Not only did researchers present their results but they also collaborated to critique and compare results, build consensus on the conclusions of research in progress, lay the groundwork for more consistent research approaches, and plan future joint work. This structured approach allowed the NE-165 conferences to have a significant impact on research productivity and usefulness. The regular publishing of books, proceedings, journal articles, and other papers made the research gains of the Project members available to a broad audience.


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