Economics for Food and Nutrition Policy (NUTR-0238)

Spring 2025 · NUTR 0238 · Tufts University · 3 credits · Undergraduate

This course equips students with the economic principles used to explain and predict consumption and production choices, market interactions and government interventions in the food system. We use the graphical methods taught in standard, one-semester courses on the principles of economics, applied to current news stories and data sources about food and nutrition problems in the United States and around the world. In so doing students gain the skills needed to: (1) explain and predict consumption, production and trade in agriculture and food markets; (2) evaluate the social welfare consequences of market failure, collective action and government policies including regulation, taxation and enforcement of property rights in agriculture and food markets; (3) measure poverty and inequality in income, wealth, nutrition and health, as influenced by changes in markets and policies; and (4) describe macroeconomic relationships, fluctuations and trends in incomes, employment, economic growth and development.

Course codes: NUTR-0238, NUTR 0238, NUTR0238, NUTR-238, NUTR 238, NUTR238

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