Abstract
A consumer life-cycle demand system is built to investigate the presence of rational habits and
the effects of food safety information on U.S. meat consumption. Information extracted from the
popular press coverage of food safety events is used to approximate consumers’ “true” perception
of food safety. At quarterly frequencies, U.S. meat demand is found to be intertemporally
nonseparable. During the post-1998 period, habit persistence is found to dominate inventory
adjustment in beef demand. In general, food safety information is found to adversely affect
meat demand. The ongoing research focuses on numerical simulations of consumer responses
to alternative food safety event scenarios to evaluate the economic significance of food safety
information and habit formation in U.S. meat demand.
Keywords: food safety, habit persistence, meat demand.