On Estimating the Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Tragedy on the U.S. Frozen Seafood Market: A Conditional Almost Ideal Demand System Approach

Abstract

The present study addresses the impact of the Deepwater Horizon event on the U.S. frozen fish and shellfish markets. Given a demand system approach, trends in consumption were carefully measured and tested while controlling for own price, cross price, and conditional expenditure effects as well as autocorrelation. Consumption trends beginning the first week of the data set were unaltered by the event. Moreover, the effect of the event was not statistically significant in either demand system. The aggregate national data for the grocery store distribution channel, which includes mostly imported seafood and some domestic aquaculture-sourced seafood, likely contributes to these findings of lack of avoidance behavior.