Winners and losers from food industry policy: An application to Danish food industry firms

Abstract

Policy impacts on food industry firms are investigated. A new approach is presented for the analysis of food industry policies that focuses on food industry firms. Data from a survey of Danish firms in 2003-2004 are used to define and construct tables of winners and losers from 30 regulatory areas. Two forms of statistical test are employed in a grid-search to identify association between regulatory areas, types of firms, and patterns of winning and losing. Results indicate that the type of firm, rather than the policy instrument, determines patterns of winning and losing. Upstream and downstream ownership of assets by food industry firms, and their trade orientation, are shown to be the most important variables. For several policy areas the pattern of winning and losing is found not to be associated with any specific firm types, which indicates that their impact is neutral across all types of firms studied. Firm size was found to be poorly associated with firms' capacity to win and lose from several policies involving high-investment compliance.