Food Economics

The course is intended to provide students with in-depth coverage of food economics with an emphasis on trends and phenomena of food markets and value chains, food labelling, food safety, food consumption, nutrition and food policy. Taking examples from these domains the course introduces a variety of economic models that are being used in food-economic research.

At the end of the module, the students are able to (1) outline important trends and phenomena in food markets in Germany, Europe and the world, (2) analyse consumer and firm behavior in food markets based on economic theory, (3) assess the effectiveness of food policy instruments, (4) acquaint themselves with scientific literature in the area of food economics and discuss and evaluate crucial assumptions, choice of methodology and implications of results.

Students prove their achievement of learning outcomes in an oral exam of 25 minutes. The exam is designed to test whether students understand the discussed topics and publications, whether they can describe and explain them in a meaningful and exact way, and whether they can critically reflect on assumptions, methodology, results, and political and societal implications of research in food economics. An oral exam is the most suitable format to account for the discursive and reflective nature of the abilities examined.

The course applies microeconomic theory to study questions of food demand and supply. Students should feel comfortable with the material in microeconomic courses at introductory level.

The module is designed as an interactive lecture where both lecturers and students provide input for discussion. In order to set up a common basis for participants, lecturers present information on major features and trends on food markets and economic concepts used to analyze them. To familiarize themselves with economic research, students read selected journal articles from the field of agricultural and food economics and prepare a short presentation of 15 minutes and a short report of about 2 pages once per semester, summarising the main hypotheses, methods applied, results obtained and implications derived. Subsequent discussions in classroom on assumptions, limitations of data and methods, as well as on different ways to interprete results deepen students' understanding of the potential and restrictions of research in food economics.