Thinking like an economist… about milk
Last Friday I was watching CNN and the government shut down was a hot topic (and still is). What stood out the most were reports about how a prolonged government shutdown might affect grocery prices, particularly the price of milk. The news claimed that milk prices could double! I didn’t know if this was actually possible, a gallon of organic milk is about $4.50. Would people actually pay $9.00 for milk? It made me wonder how a rise in price might affect the choices consumers would make at the grocery store. Would people opt for milk alternatives like coconut, soy, or almond milk? Would people choose to consume more of other beverages instead? How would this affect the price of cereal?
Today my family in Puerto Rico told me that in the past few days the price of milk has risen to $8 a gallon. I wouldn’t consider milk to be a staple of the Puerto Rican diet, but a lot of popular baked goods are made with milk. So I’m curious about how a rise in milk prices will affect the price of other popular foods. But my question to the class is, how would a rise in milk prices affect your consumer choices?
Job listings
- Friedman careers center postings
- Friedman alumni group on LinkedIn
- Sustainable Food Jobs (mostly U.S.)
- Nutrition-related jobs (ASN)
- Devex (US and international)
- Economics-related jobs (search “food”)
- Policy-related jobs (APPAM)
- Boston-area intl. dev. jobs & news (BNID)
- Food policy jobs in the US (Daybook)
- Intl. ag and nutrition jobs+news (Ag2Nut)
- TABLE job listings (UK-based but global)
- Intl. development jobs (search “food”)
- Global health & poverty (80,000 hrs)
Helpful newsletters
- Food Fix – insider scoops on US policy
- Politico – US food & ag policy
- Farm Policy News – from Univ. of Illinois
- Solutions Journalism – stories of success
- ANH Academy – mostly Africa & Asia
- Boston Network for Intl. Dev.
- Ag2nut – international nutrition
- Chicago Council – global food & ag
- The Counter – ‘Fact and friction in American food’
- Food dive – specialist journalism about the food industry
- Food Safety News – nasty stuff to avoid
- Dani Nierenberg’s Food Tank
- Jeremy Cherfas – food culture
- Gro Intel – deep dives into data
- FERN’s ag insider news
- Rudd Center – obesity policy
- David Allison – obesity research
- Econofact – US economic policy
- Best of EconTwitter – in digestible form
Data & resources
- JPAL how-to research resources
- WB DIME data analysis handbook
- Grad school advice (for econ, but applicable to others)
- My list of resources (experimental)
- USDA Econ. Res. Service (ERS) data
- USDA Food & Nutr. program data
- NCCOR – all US food-health data
- World Bank data
- FAO Statistics (FAOSTAT)
- UNICEF statistics
- WHO – child heights and weights
- WHO – global obesity and BMI
- UN system data
- HDX – humanitarian crises
- The dataverse
- IHSN – household surveys
- IPUMS – accessible data (incl. IDHS)
- Euromonitor – branded foods (library subscription)
- Gro Intelligence data
- UNCTAD – international trade
Favorite blogs on ag, food & health etc.
- Noah Smith – economics of everything
- Ethan Mollick – AI in higher ed
- Ugo Gentilini – social protection
- Parke Wilde – food policy
- Econofact – US econ policy
- Jess Fanzo – food systems
- Marc Bellemare – ag & food econ
- Chris Blattman – dev econ
- Jayson Lusk – ag & food econ
- Diane Coyle – economics books
- Marion Nestle – food politics
- Tamar Haspel – food & ag
- World Bank – impact evaluation
- BITSS – research methods
- Susan Dynarski – education policy
Archives
- July 2023
- April 2023
- March 2022
- August 2021
- May 2021
- October 2020
- September 2020
- June 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- November 2019
- September 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- January 2019
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- October 2017
- September 2017
- May 2017
- February 2017
- September 2016
- March 2016
- September 2015
- March 2015
- January 2015
- October 2014
- August 2014
- November 2013
- October 2013
- August 2013