PROF. STEVE HAMILTON

Steve Hamilton is Professor of Economics at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996 and held teaching positions at Kansas State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Central Florida, the Toulouse School of Economics, and Cal Poly, where he served as Chair of Economics from 2005 to 2017 and Director of Graduate Studies from 2016 to 2019.

He has published over 70 articles, proceedings, and book chapters on statistical methods, industrial organization, market pricing, international trade, environmental and resource economics, and public policy, and secured over $5 million in federal research grants. He has served on panels of the U.S. Department of the Interior Science Advisory Board and is recognized internationally for his work in agricultural markets, food pricing, environmental and land use regulation, energy and water markets, and antitrust. His academic honors include the Early Career Award for Outstanding Faculty Research, selection as a Research Fellow in the Rural Development Research Consortium, the Atlas Award from Elsevier Science for Research with Social Impact, the Quality of Research Discovery Award from the European Association of Agricultural Economics, and the Distinguished Scholarship Award from Cal Poly. He has delivered plenary and keynote addresses, presented at over 30 national and international conferences, and given invited seminars at more than 20 universities.

His research on food markets spans farm-level, wholesale, and retail price determination and econometric analyses of consumer demand, including the decomposition of prices into product attributes. He has extensive experience with retail point-of-sale (POS) and household panel data across highly differentiated categories including yogurt, breakfast cereal, soft drinks, ice cream, snacks, beer, and personal care products. His work also addresses incentives for fraudulent “green” and “organic” labeling, consumer willingness to pay premiums for organic and local food attributes, and the effects of product variety on pricing and category demand.

With over twenty years of consulting experience, he has provided expert testimony and economic damages analysis in complex litigation involving deceptive pricing, comparative price advertising, consumer fraud, false advertising, breach of contract, crop-loss damages, and fraudulent claims. His consulting engagements have also included market analysis of regulated industries, economic feasibility studies, environmental and land use regulation, groundwater basin management, and portfolio investment modeling.