The COVID-19 pandemic altered the way many consumers and businesses transacted business. Concerning the green industry, many households began gardening and/or purchased more green industry products. As the pandemic ends and households begin to return to normal, green industry firms need to understand this new normal. Using an online national survey of households, we assessed which households were more likely to remain in the market after entering during the height of the pandemic (2020). Findings indicated that younger consumers (i.e., Millennials and younger individuals who were born in 1985 or after) were less likely to indicate they always garden (before the pandemic) but more likely to have started gardening during the pandemic and perceived that they would not continue to garden as states returned to normal (2021). This age group was also more likely to not have gardened in 2020, but they intended to garden in 2021. This finding shows a dichotomy in gardening preferences in this young age group. Further findings indicated that race, household income, number of children in the household, and the impact of the pandemic on the household also help explain the household’s decision to garden or not.

We investigate the extent to which a grocery retailer merger has different effects on the prices of national and store brands. Using retail scanner data, we retrospectively analyze a food retail acquisition in a large U.S. city. We focus on fluid milk and ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal categories, which represent a relatively homogenous and a relatively differentiated product category, respectively. We use a differencein-difference estimation framework to obtain the causal effect of the acquisition on prices for the acquiring retailer. The primary finding is that the acquisition has heterogeneous price effects in the relatively differentiated RTE cereal category. The implications of results for consumers, food retailing, and merger analysis are discussed [Econ-Lit citations: L11, L13, L22, L81].(i) retailers can contract with large national brand manufacturers who have excess capacity to produce store brands, (ii) retailers can contract with small manufacturers to produce only store brands, (iii) retailers can own manufacturing facilities and produce store brands for themselves. 524

PurposeNontraditional lenders are important credit providers for farmers. However, previous research has found that farmers who use nontraditional lenders are riskier lending opportunities. Using a unique dataset of Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases, the authors analyze the share of payment that is made or allowed by the courts on debt owed to traditional and nontraditional lenders.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a Tobit model to calculate parameter estimates and marginal effects of the impact of creditor type (traditional/nontraditional) and debt classification (secured, priority and unsecured) on the proportion of a bankruptcy claim that lenders receive or are expected to receive when a case is discharged.FindingsThe authors find that traditional lenders with secured debt receive a greater repayment than nontraditional lenders. Meanwhile, there are more than twice the number of nontraditional lenders that are owed debt in these bankruptcy claims. While this raises concern for nontraditional lenders, that is mitigated some by the level of debt that is on average about one-sixth the size of the average debt of traditional lenders. Finally, the authors show there are numerous opportunities for future research in this area using case level bankruptcy data.Originality/valueThis paper fills a research gap by focusing on the state of nontraditional lenders in Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases and their treatment in discharged cases.

The objective of this article is to describe an investment decision using net present value and real options. A case study describes the data and the corn‐ethanol industry so students can study a cooperative's decision of whether or not to invest in a new corn‐ethanol plant in 2015 Nebraska. An extensive set of information accompanies this case, including spreadsheets with data, computer software code, lesson plans for teaching real options and net present value, and an extensive teaching note.

As food producers face increasing costs, many greenhouse growers are turning to controlled environment agriculture. The use of light-emitting diode (LED) supplemental lighting systems may increase a producer’s profitability, but it also comes with a unique set of externalities. Using an online survey, we found that showing images of light pollution from supplemental LED lighting sources facilitated respondents to want more regulation with state government being the desired regulator. Several significant factors influenced survey respondents’ posttreatment preference outcomes for different levels of regulation and regulators including demographic characteristics as well as initial attitudes toward LED lighting systems before treatment.