Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Food Safety: What Is Economists’ Value Added?, Julie Caswell

Julie Caswell

Economists are contributing to the food safety arena by analyzing demand for food safety, the consumer level benefits of improved food safety, the costs and benefits to companies from quality assurance for food safety, and the benefits and costs of government regulations aimed at improving food safety. In the food safety area, too much attention has been paid to risk assessment and not enough to risk management. Economists have a very important role to play in improving private and public risk management in areas such as pathogen reduction, use of traceability, and biotechnology.