Government regulation and quality in the US beef market

We show how government regulation played a critical role in shaping the beef industry over the past century. Technological developments in the late 19th century led to a highly concentrated meatpacking industry and fostered a national market for beef in the US, and the development of a national market for beef led to regulations to ensure quality uniformity, especially USDA grading. We explain the problems with beef quality created by USDA grading using tools from information economics. Because USDA’s fairly coarse grading system failed to measure significant aspects of beef quality, beef production suffered from the multi-tasking problem, which led producers to focus on producing larger quantities of beef while ignoring quality issues. We show that producing high quality beef requires either ex ante input controls or ex post sorting. In turn, we show how newly developed programs such as USDA quality certification and branding are incentivizing production of higher beef quality and dealing with information problems arising under USDA grading. We conclude with the implications of the regulatory history for current regulation of beef markets.     

Development planning and citizenship in Cape Town

This article argues that there is a dialectical relationship between development planning and citizenship in so far as planners, as institutional decision-makers, ensure a meaningful everyday lived experience for ordinary people. In post-apartheid South Africa, however, the statistical record signals a disjuncture and structural hiatus between what should be the basic rights of ordinary people and the role of local government in promoting citizen-driven development planning at the grassroots level. This article deals specifically with the Wallacedene community, who took the planning authorities to court to have their constitutional right of access to adequate housing and related services enforced. The implications of this court case vis-à-vis development planning are considered and recommendations are proffered.