Document Type
Thesis
First Faculty Advisor
Allison Kaminaga
Keywords
Economics ; Food Waste ; Macroeconomic Determinants
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND license.
Abstract
Food waste is a complex issue that impacts people all over the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, approximately 30% of the global food supply is wasted each year. The United States is believed to be the highest waster of food in the world, with 40% of the United States food supply wasted each year (USDA, 2021). There are a multitude of studies on household and consumer food waste, however, this is only the final stage in the supply chain. To understand how to mitigate the food waste problem in countries of varying income levels, the entire food supply chain must be examined and analyzed. Waste happens at every stage in the food supply chain, and in this study, I conduct an empirical analysis of the macroeconomic determinants of food waste as defined by the FAO for the year 2013 in middle- and high-income countries as classified by the World Bank. This study contributes to the literature on food waste by providing a more holistic and complete picture of the global food waste problem by examining macroeconomic level data instead of just household data.
