My research focuses on behavioral models of producer and consumer choices in imperfectly competitive markets. I am interested in practical problems that stakeholders and policy makers face in providing public goods, including resilient, economically and environmentally sustainable production systems. I am particularly focused on the tension between the effects of market power and policy solutions that engage stakeholders through their preferences for pro-social outcomes. To date, my research focuses on mid-scale intermediated agricultural markets in which producers’, processors’, and distributors’ marketing decisions may be influenced by both market structure and firms’ pro-social motivations. I am interested in these markets because stakeholder choices may be motivated by pro-social goals embedded in agricultural markets. I combine field research, econometric methods, and theory based in behavioral and industrial organization to develop a model to analyze equilibria and policy interventions in these markets.
I work with interdisciplinary research teams, community partners, and stakeholders to define research questions and projects that contribute to practical public and private efforts to build new economically and environmentally sustainable markets. My research interests largely stem from practical questions and needs of stakeholders. My pre-PhD career work gave me experience working with community stakeholders, and I relish opportunities to make economic research relevant to non-economists.