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What caused the rise of "factory farms"?

An interesting insight into one of the key factors that precipitated  the development of "factory farms" from Maureen Ogle's forthcoming book In Meat We Trust: 

World War II also drained American agriculture of its labor supply, a fact that, as we'll see later, would have a profound impact on the way farmers raised livestock. Even before the United States entered the war, factories had geared up to supply warring countries with materiel, and men and women decamped from the farm for jobs those factories provided. In Georgia alone, between 1937 and 1941, 30 percent of agricultural workers left farm for factory. The shortage worsened after the United States declared war in late 1941. Everywhere in rural America, from dairy farms to cattle-feeding operations, from corn belt hog lots to rural Georgia chicken coops, labor vanished. When labor cannot be found, humans make a logical decision: they replace it with machinery. Americans had a long-standing tradition of doing so. For most of the nineteenth century, for example, the country suffered chronic shortages of labor that fostered a national passion for mechanization and automation. So, too, in the 1940s. Factory farming already had plenty of support both in and out of agriculture, and World War II affirmed that enthusiasm. Nowhere was this more true than in the broiler industry

The argument reminds me of an episode described by Joan Thirsk in her book Alternative Agriculture: A History: From the Black Death to the Present Day.  The severe labor shortage caused by the black death was, according to Thirsk, a big factor motivating change in the agricultural sector in the 14th century.  

It is amazing how an exogenous shock like plague or war can change perspectives on the relative risk and benefits of new food and farm technologies.  

The Paternalist Meets His Match

That is the title of a new paper that I co-authored with Bailey Norwood and Stephan Marette that was just released by the journal  Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.  It will be coming out in their special issue on Nudge.

Here are a few excerpts from the paper: 

As illustrated by Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No,” and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaigns, public figures are often interested in the choices made by others. Indeed, concern for other’s food and health choices is often manifested in public policy, from America’s 1920s-era prohibition on alcohol, all the way to today’s bans on trans fats. Some form of altruism is often indicated as the prime motivator for such paternalism (e.g., Arrow 1963; Jacobsson et al. 2007). Developments in behavioral economics have added fuel to the fire by suggesting that people’s health and food choices may not actually promote their own long-term well-being.

and

Yet, the conclusion that paternalism is warranted in light of the evidence of behavioral biases is typically a logical extrapolation, rather than a direct observation that paternalistic policies actually maximize efficiency or enhance welfare, however conceived. . . . The purpose of this paper is to study paternalism from both the perspective of the paternalist and the recipient of the paternalism (the person whom we refer to as the paternalee). That is, rather than taking evidence of decision-making biases as prima fascia justification for paternalism, we study how paternalists make decisions for others and how paternalees respond to decisions made for them.

From the abstract: 

Using data from over 300 people recruited from two cities in the United States and France, we study how choices between a relatively healthy item (apples) and a relatively unhealthy item (cookies) are influenced by one’s role as either the paternalist or the paternalee. We find that after being provided information on nutritional content, but not before, paternalists make healthier choices for the paternalees than for themselves. Surprisingly, prior to being provided information, paternalees desire healthier choices than they expect the paternalists to give, a phenomenon that seems to arise from a type of egotism where individuals believe they make healthier choices than everyone else. Results in both locations reveal that more than 75% of paternalees prefer their own choices compared to the ones made for them by the paternalists, and are willing to pay nontrivial amounts to have their own choices. Any intrinsic value people place on the freedom of choice must be weighed against whatever benefits might arise from paternalistic policies, and consequently the scope for paternalism may be narrower than is often purported.

 

How do you order at restaurants?

Yesterday, Alexandra Sifferlin at TIME.com wrote about some research I've worked on with Brenna Ellison at the University of Illinois.   Brenna collected data on what people order at restaurants and correlated that with what other people at the same table also order.  Here is a snippet from the TIME blog:

The researchers then created a model to assess how customers felt about their choices. Based on the popularity of menu items, the researchers determined the probability that individuals were satisfied with their choice. Interestingly, this gauge of satisfaction was influenced by expected factors such as price and calories, but also by fellow diners’ menu choices as well. They found that even if a customer initially felt less satisfied about their choice of say, a salad, they felt better about it if their friends ordered an item within the same menu category.
“The big takeaway from this research is that people were happier if they were making similar choices to those sitting around them,” study author Brenna Ellison, an economist at the U of I, said in a statement. “If my peers are ordering higher-calorie items or spending more money, then I am also happier, or at least less unhappy, if I order higher-calorie foods and spend more money.” So if you’re hoping to eat better, try dining with friends who do too.

You can read the actual research paper here.