Yuqing Zheng

Professor Zheng’s research has focused on the connection of food and health, with applications to meat alternatives/hemp, non-GMO and bio-engineered foods, big data (machine learning), and food safety certifications. He has examined (1) private and public food safety standards from firm's perspective (e.g., producers choosing certifiers in the food safety certification [such as the British Retail Consortium standard, BRC standard] and organic certification markets), (2) government program/policy impact (e.g., grocery food sales tax impact on food insecurity, eating habit, and health), and (3) food, tobacco, and beverage demand using big data including Nielsen and Circana (IRI) scanner data and Mintel's Global New Product Database.

He has published papers in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Health Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Food Policy, Economic Inquiry, Southern Economic Journal, and Economics Letters, among others. His research has been/was funded by the USDA, U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FDA CFSAN) and Center for Tobacco Products (FDA CTP). He directed the development of the FDA Food Regulation and Enforcement Policy Trade Impact Model and the FDA Tobacco Category Demand Model. His paper on sales tax received the 2013 Best Economics Paper Award from the food safety and nutrition section of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). He is a recipient of the AAEA's 2019 Quality of Communication Award. He is an adjunct professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics of Cornell University.