Oral Capps

Areas of Expertise

• Consumer Demand
• Marketing
• Applied Econometrics
• Statistics
• Forecasting

Professional Summary

Over a long and distinguished career, Oral “Jug” Capps, Jr. has been at the forefront of research on consumer demand issues, applied econometrics, theoretical and practical approaches to the use of scanner data, food labeling, impacts of health and nutrition on consumer behavior, and evaluation of the effectiveness of commodity advertising and promotion programs. His research approach is a rigorous blend of theory-based econometric methodology and applications. Dr. Capps laid the foundation for the now ubiquitous data-intensive and theory-based food demand research approaches. His body of work has been highly cited, and has been professionally awarded for research, teaching, mentoring, graduate student supervision, private sector partnerships, and professional service. He has published ground-breaking work concerning uses of scanner-derived information for managerial decision-making in food retailing; the analysis of expenditure patterns of pre-prepared foods and foods eaten away from home; the analysis of the food demand impacts of health and nutrition information; the unilateral price effects of mergers and acquisitions; and the evaluation of generic commodity advertising and promotion programs. His moniker is “an academician with a corporate mentality.”

Currently Executive Professor, Regents Professor and holder of the Southwest Dairy Marketing Endowed Chair in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University as well as Co-Director of the Agribusiness, Food, and Consumer Economics Research Center (AFCERC), Dr. Capps was educated at Virginia Tech. He earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics in 1975, a M.S. degree in Agricultural Economics in 1977, a second M.S. degree in Statistics in 1979, and a Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Economics in December 1979. He has authored 173 refereed journal articles and authored/co-authored six books. In July 2024, Dr. Capps was bestowed the title of Fellow by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).

According to RePEc/IDEAS rankings released in June 2025, based on the number of citations, Dr. Capps ranks in the top 5.30% out of 71,559 economists globally. He ranks in the top 4.21% in terms of the h-index. In terms of the number of distinct research works, Dr. Capps ranks in the top 0.60%, and in terms of number of journal pages, he ranks in the top 1.22%. He ranks in the top 1.22% in terms of record of graduates.

As of July 6, 2025, total contracts and grants funding amounted to $9.1 million.

Dr. Capps was Past President of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and was Past President of the Food Distribution Research Society. He has served or is currently serving as a consultant to various firms, commodity boards, and law offices. Finally, Capps is Co-Founder (in 2001), Chief Economist, and Managing Partner of Forecasting and Business Analytics. LLC, (FABA) a consulting firm specializing in the use of quantitative methods to address economic problems.

Selected Publications

1. Cheng, G., O. Capps, Jr., and S. Dharmasena, “Demand Interrelationships for Peanuts and Tree Nuts in the United States,” Journal of Agribusiness 39,1 (2022).
2. Williams, G.W., and O. Capps, Jr., “The Apparent Conflict of Norwegian Pelagic Fisheries Management and Norwegian Seafood Council Export Promotion,” international Food and Agribusiness Management Review (2021): 1-22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22434/IFAMR2021.0059.
3. Capps, O., Jr., and R. Gvillo, “Economic and Socio-Demographic Drivers Associated with the Decision to Purchase Food Items and Non-Alcoholic Beverages from Vending Machines in the United States,” Journal of Food Distribution Research 51,3 (2020).
4. Capps, Jr., O., G.W. Williams, V. Salin, and S. Brown, “Quantitative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Promotion Activities by the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program and the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program – 1995 to 2018,” Report to Dairy Management, Inc. and USDA-AMS, included in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Report to Congress on the Dairy Promotion and Research Program and Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program: 2018 Program Activities (2020). Available online.
5. Williams, G.W. and O. Capps, Jr., “Generic Promotion of Norwegian Whitefish Exports,” Journal of International Food and Agribusiness Marketing (2020): 123-151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08974438.2020.1752876.
6. Williams, G.W. and O. Capps, Jr., “Generic Promotion of Sorghum for Food and Industrial Use,” Journal of International Food and Agribusiness Marketing 32,1 (2020): 13-29.
7. Capps, Jr., O. and R.A. Babula, “Development of a Methodology to Empirically Assess National and Farm-Specific Damages from Contamination of Grain Supply by a Genetically-Engineered Strain,” Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 51 (2019):495-510, link https://doi.org/10.1017/aae.2019.16.
8. Williams, G. W. and O. Capps, Jr., “The Apparent Conflict of Norwegian Pelagic Fisheries Management and Norwegian Seafood Council Export Promotion,” International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, https://doi.org/10.22434/IFAMR2021.0059.

All Publications

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