AGRI-FOOD ECONOMICS AND LAW

Learning Objectives

• Agri-food economics

  To supply conceptual and practical skills on the agri-food system, adopting both a micro and a macroeconomics perspective of analysis.

• Food legislation

  Provide the bases on law in general and investigate the logic of food legislation disaggregating the publicity purposes (for the protection of health), the commercial ones (to protect the competitiveness and transparency of the market) and the more purely private ones (to protect consumers and small entrepreneurs in front of large companies).

Course Structure

• Agri-food economics

  Lectures (28 hours) and exercises (28 hours).

  In case of on line teaching, it may necessary to change some tipologies of exercises in order to comply with the outline.Learning assessment can also be carried out online, if conditions require it.

• Food legislation

  The course will take place through lectures, during which practical cases will also be presented, resolved with the active participation of the students, also through the special constitution of work groups.

  Lectures and exercises (classroom and company), also on line If teaching is done in mixed or remote mode, specific changes to the program may need to be made.

  The exam will be oral. During the course of lessons, intermediate written tests on practical cases can be carried out.
  
  The exam will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
  
  Relevance of the answers to the questions asked
  Quality and understanding of the contents
  Ability to connect with other program topics
  Ability to report examples
  Technical language properties
  Overall exhibition capacity of the student

Detailed Course Content

• Agri-food economics

  Political economy / Economic policy. Microeconomic and macroeconomics. Economic system. Agrifood system. Consumer behavior theory. Utility theory: cardinal and ordinal. Demand theory. The production and the costs theory. Perfect market and Imperfect markets. Free competition; Oligopoly; Monopoly; Bilateral monopoly; Monopolistic competition. Production factors markets. The national income; the income distribution. The commercial policy. International organizations. European Union. The balance of trade and balance of payments. Statistic sources (ISTAT, EUROSTAT, FAO, UNComtrade, CCIAA).

• Food legislation

  1. The legal system and the sources of private law 2. The goods 3. Obligations and contracts 4. The agricultural entrepreneur and agricultural contracts 5. The contract for the sale of food products 6. The consumer contract and producer responsibility 7. Hygiene, quality and safety 8. Labeling of food products 9. Distinguishing marks and intellectual property

Textbook Information

• Agri-food economics

  1. Messori, F. (1994). Istituzioni di economia. CLUEB, Bologna.

  2. Gilibert, A. (1996). Manuale di economia politica, Lattes & C..

  3. Mankiw, N. G., Ashworth, A., & Taylor, M. P. (2015). Principi di economia per l'impresa, Zanichelli-

  4. Malassis, L., & Ghersi, G. (Eds.). (1995). Introduzione all'economia agroalimentare. Il Mulino.

  5. Begg D. , Fisher S. , Dornbush R. (2001) Economia . McGraw-Hill

• Food legislation

  Text 1. Vincenzo Roppo, Private law, Essential features, VI edition, Giappichelli Ed., 2020. The student, for the parts indicated with reference to TEXT 1 (Roppo), can alternatively consult A. Torrente - P. Schlesinger, Manual of private law, XXIV ed., Giuffrè, 2019.

  Text 2. Stefano Masini, Course of food law, fifth edition, Giuffrè, 2020. The student, for the parts indicated with reference to TEXT 2 (Masini), can alternatively consult Matteo Ferrari - Umberto Izzo, Comparative food law, Il Mulino, 2012. For regulatory feedback, the use of an updated civil code is recommended. The total load is approximately 180 pages.