Research Themes

Research themes

PSAE has three core research themes, Sustainable diets, Agricultural and agrifood industrie and Sustainable production system, and two multidisciplinary research axes, Evaluation of public policies and Quantitative data and methodologies.

Core research themes

• Sustainable diets
  • Analyse the possible conditions under which dietary regimes could shift, as products become increasingly differentiated
  • Understand the factors underlying the dietary behaviours of consumers and the consequences for demand, social inequalities, health, and the environment

• Agricultural and agrifood industries
  • Analyse the consequences of shifts (e.g., input prices, regulations) within international agricultural markets and all along the production chain, from agricultural commodities to distribution
  • Use original approaches to mobilise the economics of development and demand to better understand industry structure and international trade

• Sustainable production systems
  • Model relationships between the environment and the supply of agricultural products using theoretical knowledge in environmental economics and public economics that is applied at different scales (e.g., landscape, France, EU) and that accounts for spatial and interindividual heterogeneity in production conditions
  • Analyse adaptive responses to climate change and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

Multidisciplinary research axes

Two transversal axes complete this structure.

• Evaluation of public policies
  • Study regulations applied at different food system levels: farmers, agrifood businesses, distributors, and consumers
  • Carry out prospective (ex ante) and retrospective (ex post) evaluations; provide solutions based on empirical research

•  Quantitative data and methodologies
  • Evaluate the economic effectiveness of public policies using theoretical analyses and quantitative methods, such as econometrics, experimental economics, and/or market equilibrium modelling
  • Quantify economic impacts by building databases using the ODALIM platform