Household food waste has become a global concern for all countries in the world. This study focuses on the household level to clarify the impact of household food waste, and we use an online questionnaire survey across China to estimate the proportion of household food waste from five categories, including whole food; fruits and vegetables; poultry, eggs, meat, and dairy products; staple food; and snacks and candy. Then, we use the logit and Tobit models to estimate the relationship between the five food categories and consumer characteristics. First, the statistical analysis shows that in China, the incidence rate and proportion of household food waste are 90.7% and 9.9%, respectively. Among them, the incidence rate and proportion of fruit and vegetable waste are the highest. The results of heterogeneity also show regional differences in the incidence rate and proportion of food waste. Second, the empirical results show that label cognition, garbage disposal cognition, vegetarianism, population, children or elders in the household, the experience of starvation, and age are important explanatory factors for the incidence and proportion of food waste in the household.

We analyze the dynamic changes in individuals’ lifestyle during the COVID-19 outbreak and recovery period through a survey of 1061 Chinese households. Specifically, we are interested in individuals’ bodyweight, time allocation and food choices. We find that COVID-19 is associated with weight gain, less time spent on exercise and more time on entertainment. The proportion of online food purchase and snack purchases also shows an upward trend. This study provides useful implications on the impact of COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns on individuals’ lifestyle and offers foresights for countries in different stages of the pandemic. It explains how encouraging exercise, managing new food purchase venues, and reducing the intake of unhealthy food such as snacks may also need to be considered in dealing with the aftermath of COVID-19.

We evaluated the effectiveness and sustainability of the grain price support policies in China using the structural break regime switching model. Based on the rice, wheat, and corn monthly price data from 1987 to 2017, we provide strong evidence that the Chinese grain price support policies have been effective in stabilizing the domestic grain price. A structural change occurred in grain price patterns in 2004 when the price support policies were established. Since then, Chinese grain prices have followed a regime with significantly lower volatility. We documented several problems challenging the sustainability of the Chinese grain price support policies in the future, including high economic costs that can trigger high support prices, high public stock level, and high grain import pressure. Our findings shed new light on the functioning of the grain pricing policies and provide useful implications for the market-oriented reforms in the Chinese grain market.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government adopted a series of preventative measures to control the spread of the virus. This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated prevention methods on meal sharing in China. Meal gathering during multiple periods before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 is captured through two waves of online survey across China between March and June 2020, collecting a total of 1847 observations. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) method to identify the causal effects of COVID-19 severity on meal sharing. The results show that relative to the same period in 2019, the frequency of meal gathering decreased sharply after the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 in both epicenters and non-epicenters. Furthermore, the impact of COVID-19 differed across different types of meal sharing. Our findings have implications for consumers, food service operators, as well as policymakers to understand the social and community impact of the pandemic and to adjust their coping strategies.