Research

Research

Major research questions adressed by our team are related to

 

(i) product differentiation and price formation (e.g., hedonic price analyses),

(ii) competition on agricultural and food markets (e.g., industrial economics approaches) and

(iii) international trade of agricultural products and food (e.g., pricing-to-market approaches, gravity models).

 

With regard to consumer behaviour our research focuses on analyzing consumer acceptance, perception, and willingness to pay while taking cognitive aspects of perception as well as the influence of cultural differences in cross-country studies into account. Furthermore, our research focuses on questions related to the so-called nutrition transition.

 

Methods

Methodologically we apply mixed-methods approaches, which means the combination of qualitative and quantitative data.

 

A mixed-methods approach combines for example focus group interviews in order to generate qualitative data in a first examination step with a survey to generate quantitative data in a second step. For analyzing quantitative data different econometric methods are used.

 

 

 

Regional focus and research network

Research is carried out primarily in Germany but also in transition countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Central Asia.   

 

Close research collaborations exist with researchers from the Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural  Development in Transition Countries (Halle, Germany), from the Higher School of Economics (Perm, Russia) and with researchers from the Technical University Munich (Germany).