Mapping of food industry strategies to influence public health policy, research and practice in South Africa

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

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To identify the corporate political activity (CPA) of food industry actors in South Africa, Mélissa Mialon and her colleagues, writing in the International Journal of Public Health,  studied the CPA of ten different food actors in South Africa using a systematic approach to collect and analyze information available in the public domain, including material from the industry, government, academia, and civil society. They found that food industry actors in South Africa established multiple relationships with various parties in and outside the South African government. In addition, the food industry-sponsored community programs, with a focus on poverty alleviation, undernutrition, and food industry actors who influenced science, were directly involved in policymaking and helped frame the debate on diet and public health in South Africa. They concluded with calls for increased transparency, disclosure, awareness of industry strategies, and stronger mechanisms to address and manage industry influence within South Africa.

Market Power, Inequality, and Financial Instability

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

A new report from two economists at the Federal Reserve concludes that over the last four decades, the U.S. economy has experienced a few secular trends, each of which may be considered undesirable in some aspects: declining labor share; rising profit share; rising income and wealth inequalities; and rising household sector leverage, and associated financial instability. The authors develop a real business cycle model and show that the rise of market power of the firms in both product and labor markets over the last four decades, can generate all of these secular trends. They derive macroprudential policy implications for financial stability.