New Prairie Press

Title

The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets

Authors

Andrew Barkley, Kansas State UniversityFollow

Files

Description

The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is written for applied intermediate microeconomics courses. The book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, and natural resource sectors. The field of agricultural economics is relevant, important and interesting. The study of market structures, also called industrial organization, provides powerful, timely, and useful tools for any individual or group making personal choices, business decisions, or public policies in food and agriculture industries.

Readers will benefit from a large number of real-world examples and applications of the economic concepts under discussion. The book introduces economic principles in a succinct and reader-friendly format, providing students and instructors with a clear, up-to-date, and straightforward approach to learning how a market-based economy functions, and how to use simple economic principles for improved decision making. The principles are applied to timely, interesting, and important real-world issues through words, graphs, and simple algebra and calculus. This book is intended for students who study agricultural economics, microeconomics, rural development and environmental policy.

The goal of the book is to encourage students to learn to “think like an economist” through application of benefits and costs to every decision, idea, and strategic decision. This objective is accomplished by including extended examples that cover such topics as the analysis of consumer decisions, supply and demand, and market efficiency; the design of pricing strategies; advertising and marketing decisions; and public policy analysis.

Contents

The book begins with a review and introduction of the science of economics, including markets, scarcity, and the scientific method. Supply and demand are examined carefully and completely, with numerous real-world examples. The power of the market model is employed to explain and predict economic phenomena and current events. Elasticities are defined, explained, and put to use in decision making for all individuals, businesses, and policy makers.

Next, the motivation for and consequences of globalization and international trade are explored. Government policies are surveyed, including taxes, subsidies, and trade policies. Monopoly and monopsony are presented, using numerous real-world examples and anecdotes. Pricing strategies are comprehensively discussed, including price discrimination, peak-load pricing, two-part pricing, bundling, and advertising.

Monopolistic competition and oligopoly are defined, explained, and used to understand real-world markets. Game theory, or strategic decision making, is introduced and used to demonstrate how to make better decisions in numerous situations when other individuals and groups are affected by a choice or strategy. Repeated games, sequential games, and first-mover advantage are carefully presented and considered.

ISBN

978-1-944548-05-6

Publication Date

2016

Comments

Review Comments:

"If you are looking for a textbook that manages to be both thorough and succinct, reducing agricultural economics to its core tenets without sacrificing eloquence or inspiration, then The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is for you!" Bailey Norwood, Barry Pollard, M.D. / P&K Equipment Professorship in Agribusiness, Oklahoma State University.

"Dr. Barkley has produced an accessible electronic textbook that connects economic theory related to non-competitive market structures to contemporary, relevant agricultural firms and issues. His explanation of theory and quantitative applications are well-crafted to train university students in an economic way of thinking and to help them recognize how economic principles are at work all over the agricultural and food landscape. " Brian K. Coffey, Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University.

Publisher

New Prairie Press

City

Manhattan

Keywords

microeconomics, textbook, agricultural economics, agribusiness, international trade, market structures

Disciplines

Agricultural Economics | Higher Education

Recommended Citation

Barkley, Andrew, "The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets" (2016). NPP eBooks. 12.
https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/12

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.