Joseph Burke

Induced Product Innovation in the U.s. Dairy Industry: the Economics of Milk Protein Concentrate Joseph Burke

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, imports of milkprotein concentrate had brought the U. S. agriculturalprograms to a crisis. The USDA was rapidlyaccumulating stocks of nonfat dry milk and unable tomaintain the support prices to which it wascommitted, the cornerstone of American dairy policy. In this crisis can be seen many subtle and dynamicphenomena that make the modern economy sointeresting, including how economic policy can inducethe creation of new products, the consequences ofmismatches between domestic and trade policy, and howthe regulatory structure can become both a barrier totrade and an obstacle to innovation, all of which areexplored here. This book also provides an overview ofU. S. dairy policy, which consists not of a singlepolicy but of several interrelated policies, such asthe Federal and California Milk Marketing Orders, theMilk Price Support Program, trade policy, federalregulations, and international standards. Thesepolicies are thoroughly discussed and incorporatedinto an economic model of the U. S. dairy industry, presented here in detail.