Does how you pay influence the share of healthy items that you Buy? Assessing differences in nutritional quality of food purchases by payment type

Shoppers that use cash as a form of payment are more likely to evaluate the necessity of an item they purchase than shoppers that pay with other forms of payment, such as credit cards. In this paper, we hypothesize that the use of cash may nudge shoppers to buy more healthful food items. We empirically evaluate whether the payment method affects the nutritional quality of food purchases. We also test whether the effect of payment type differs between food-at-home and food-away-from-home events. Specifically, we test whether shoppers purchase a higher share of nutritious food items when they pay with cash compared to when they use credit and debit cards. We use the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) data that tracks individual’s food purchases over one week. Using the Guiding Stars Program (GSP) algorithm to measure the nutritional quality of food items, we calculate the share of healthy items purchased at each event. We find that shoppers using cash purchase a higher share of healthy items than when they use credit or debit cards, and this nudging effect is primarily driven by food-away-from-home purchases.     

Understanding heterogeneity in price changes and firm responses to a national unhealthy food tax in Mexico

To address the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in Mexico, an eight percent ad valorem excise tax on non-essential energy-dense foods came into effect on 1 January 2014. This paper estimates price changes after the tax implementation among the top four food categories and by leading vs. non-leading firms using purchase information from over 6000 urban households in the 2012–2015 Nielsen Mexico Consumer Panel. We create product-city-month specific prices that correct for potential biases associated with household and retailer characteristics. Using these corrected prices, we conduct before and after quasi-experimental analyses and find that price increases were larger than eight percent for cookies but were less than eight percent for ready-to-eat cereals, salty snacks, and pre-packaged sweet bread. For the latter food group, event-study analyses on the gradual price change over time suggest that price changes might be the result of an increasing price trend rather than the tax implementation. Firm-level analyses mostly show that price increases by the leading firms were larger than the overall increase at the food market level, helping explain variability in post-tax declines in food purchases as reported in other research. We also find that price changes are generally underestimated when we do not correct prices for biases associated with households and retailers. These results improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind heterogeneous changes in purchases after the tax implementation. Additionally, these results can assist policymakers when designing or improving taxes on non-essential energy-dense foods at a time when these policy options are high on the agenda in many places.     

Taxes and the User Cost of Capital for Owner-Occupied Housing

Owner-occupied housing is said to be favored in the tax code because the return on owner's equity is not taxed and mortgage interest and property taxes can be deducted in the computation of one's income tax base. The special tax treatment reduces the user cost of capital for owner-occupied housing.
The issue treated in this paper is the measurement of the tax rate to be employed in the user cost calculations. It is argued that different tax rates are appropriate for the tenure choice and quantity-demanded decisions, and that these values depend on the detailed tax position of the household and the method of finance. Average 1977 tax rates for household in different income ranges are calculated using the NBER TAXSIM microeconomic data file on individual tax returns.     

Exclusionary discounts

We consider a two-period model with two sellers and one buyer. Although we assume it is efficient for the buyer to purchase from both sellers in each period, we show that when the buyer's valuations are inter-temporally linked and at least one seller is financially constrained, exclusion can sometimes arise in equilibrium (i.e., the buyer purchases all of its requirements from the same seller in each period). The exclusionary equilibria are supported by contract offers in which the excluding seller's incremental price to supply the contestable part of demand is below its marginal cost and sometimes negative. Our findings contribute to the literatures on market-share contracts, bundling, all-units discounts, and loyalty discounts.     

The Effect of Fuel Price Changes on Fleet Demand for New Vehicle Fuel Economy

New vehicle purchases by private companies and government agencies, or ‘fleet’ buyers, represent a significant percentage of overall new vehicle sales in the United States. Yet little is known about fleet demand for new vehicle fuel economy including how it responds to fuel price changes. Using unique disaggregated data on fleet and household registrations of new vehicles from 2009 to 2016, we estimate how fleet demand for new vehicle fuel economy responds to fuel price changes. We find that fleet purchases of low fuel economy vehicles fall relative to high fuel economy vehicles when gasoline prices increase, a finding that is consistent with fleet buyers’ taking into account capitalization of fuel costs in the second‐hand market. Our estimates imply that raising gasoline prices by one dollar would increase fuel economy of new vehicles acquired by fleet buyers by 0.33 miles per gallon. We estimate a similar response for household buyers during the same period. This result justifies basing fuel economy responses to fuel cost changes on household data alone, an assumption widely used in the vehicle demand literature and the fuel economy valuation literature. We also find, however, that the response to fuel price changes varies across the types of fleet buyers: rental companies respond strongly to fuel price changes, whereas commercial and government buyers are insensitive. Our estimates imply that an increase in the federal gasoline tax would modestly increase fuel economy of vehicles bought by households and rental companies but would have little to no impact on fuel economy of vehicles bought by non‐rental companies and governments.     

A reconsideration of the sugar sweetened beverage tax in a household production model

We study the impact of a hypothetical tax on sugar - sweetened beverages (SSBs) on the U.S. households’ nutrients purchase, welfare change, and health benefit. Differently from the traditional approach, Food at Home (FAH) is here defined as a “home” good instead of a market good and consumers’ demands derived under the assumption that households maximize utility subject to both a money and a time constraint. The model is estimated by using an incomplete approximate Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) demand system on a data set built by merging the U.S. consumer expenditure and time use surveys. Results show that a SSB tax would be much more effective in decreasing household nutrients purchase than it would appear by estimating a model neglecting time costs in home food production, due to a lesser compensation of calories from increasing FAH consumption. A tax-induced 38% increase in SSB price is predicted to decrease the per capita energy purchase by 41 kcal/day.     

The Danish tax on saturated fat – Short run effects on consumption,substitution patterns and consumer prices of fats

Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fat in food products with effect from October 2011. The objective of this paper is to make an effect assessment of this tax for some of the product categories most significantly affected by the new tax, namely fats such as butter, butter-blends, margarine and oils. This assessment is done by conducting an econometric analysis on weekly food purchase data from a large household panel dataset (GfK Panel Services Denmark), spanning the period from January 2008 until July 2012.The econometric analysis suggest that the introduction of the tax on saturated fat in food products has had some effects on the market for the considered products, in that the level of consumption of fats dropped by 10–15%. Furthermore, the analysis points at shifts in demand from high price supermarkets towards low-price discount stores – at least for some types of oils and fats, a shift that seems to have been utilised by discount chains to raise the prices of butter and margarine by more than the pure tax increase. Due to the relatively short data period with the tax being active, interpretation of these findings from a long-run perspective should be done with considerable care. It is thus recommended to repeat – and broaden – the analysis at a later stage, when data are available for a longer period after the introduction of the fat tax.     

Can targeted food taxes and subsidies improve the diet? Distributional effects among income groups

This paper analyses distributional effects of revenue-neutral tax reforms aimed at improving dietary quality and encouraging healthier grain consumption. Using data on household grain purchases, we analyse both the impact on dietary quality and the tax incidence among income groups of VAT reforms and excise duty reforms. The VAT reforms include subsidies of healthy products (products labelled with the Swedish National Food Administration’s healthy symbol) funded by increased VAT on ‘less healthy’ products. The excise duty reforms contain a subsidy of fibre content, funded by excise duties on either added sugar or saturated fat. Our results suggest that the VAT reforms have a similar impact on dietary quality across all income groups, with increases in fibre intake, but also unwanted increases in the intake of nutrients frequently overconsumed: fat, salt and sugar. The impact on dietary quality of the VAT reforms is therefore difficult to evaluate. With the exception of the lowest income group, the excise duty reforms seem to have a positive health effect across all other income groups, with increases in the intake of fibre and reductions in the intake of saturated fat, sugar and added sugar. For the lowest income group we find the highest increase in the intake of fibre, but generally an increase in the intake of the other nutrients, too. The excise duty reforms also result in a more energy-dense grain diet, with increases in the intake of calories for all income groups. Both the VAT reforms and the excise duty reforms appear to be progressive. The lowest income group pays less food taxes and generally faces a lower overall post-reform price level. The income group that increases its tax payments most is the one with the highest income. This is also the income group that faces the largest increase in the overall post-reform price level.     

Myopic optimal policy for a multi-period, two-delivery-lead-times, stochastic inventory problem with minimum cumulative commitment and capacity

This paper studies a single-product, multi-period, stochastic inventory problem that imposes the lower and upper bounds on the cumulative order quantity during a planning horizon and allows two delivery lead times. This model includes three features. The first one is that a buyer purchases a fixed capacity from a supplier at the beginning of a planning horizon and the buyer’s total cumulative order quantity during the planning horizon is constrained with the capacity. The second one is that the buyer agrees to purchase the product at least a certain percentage of the purchased capacity during the planning horizon. The third one is that the supplier allows the buyer to order the product with two-delivery-lead-times. We identify conditions under which a myopic ordering policy is optimal. We also develop an algorithm to calculate the optimal capacity when the minimum cumulative order quantity commitment is a certain percentage of the capacity. We then use the algorithm to evaluate the effect of the various parameters on the buyer’s minimum expected total cost during the planning horizon. Our computation shows that the buyer would benefit from the commitments and two-delivery-lead-times.     

EPC合同中营业税与增值税税负统筹探讨

石油建设项目EPC总承包合同的税负统筹是一项系统工程,政策性强,关系到各方利益。营业税和增值税是税负统筹的重点,应尽量以增值税形式纳税,减少营业税应税额。总承包商纳税统筹应考虑：取得增值税一般纳税人资格;将EPC总承包合同按设计、采购、施工的框架进行拆分;采购合同尽量采用由供应商将增值税发票直接开具给项目业主的形式;合理提高采购购置费中归入设备范畴的种类与数量;适当提高采购合同覆盖范围,合理利用混合销售行为相关规定。对于采购运输费增值税的抵扣,为合理增加进项税抵扣额,总承包商宜直接与具备自开票纳税人资格或代开票纳税人资格的运输单位签署运输合同,取得货物运输发票;或者总承包商根据采购地域分布,建立若干货运中心,自行组织货物运输。     

Tenure Decisions Under a Progressive Tax Structure

Although certain provisions of the federal tax code provide subsidies to homeowners, others provide subsidies to renters in the form of tax incentives for investments in rental housing. We demonstrate that the renter subsidies dominate for households in low tax brackets whereas homeowner subsidies dominate for households in high tax brackets. Moreover the dollar magnitude involved in the tenure decision can easily push a household across tax brackets. Based on this relation, we identify an upper bound on the value of a dwelling that a household with a given income will prefer to own rather than rent for tax purposes. If the household were to choose a dwelling valued in excess of this household-specific upper bound, the tax effect would reverse and favor renting. This complication provides a possible explanation for apparent tax anomalies in tenure decisions, i.e., high income renters and/or low income homeowners.     

哈萨克斯坦油气领域哈萨克斯坦含量问题及其应对策略

基于经济和产业安全的考虑,同时为了维护本国利益,近年来哈萨克斯坦政府修订相应的法律和法规,强化对油气投资领域的哈萨克斯坦含量要求,并对矿产资源使用者采办商品、工程和服务的过程加以详细规定,在石油合同中也对哈萨克斯坦含量作出相应规定.然而,哈国生产的产品少,某些产品质量不过关,以及专业人才缺乏等客观情况限制了哈萨克斯坦含量的提高.哈国已经结束加入WTO的谈判,预计将于2012年年底加入WTO.当地含量要求是世界贸易组织禁止的与贸易有关的投资措施,但哈国在入世谈判中仍为油气领域赢得了在入世后工程和服务采办以及从业人员数量保持50％哈萨克斯坦含量的权利.为此,建议在哈国的中国石油公司在与哈方谈判时,努力争取有利的哈萨克斯坦含量规定;加强对履行哈萨克斯坦含量义务的重视和组织工作力度;深入研究与哈萨克斯坦含量相关的法律,避免出现违反哈国法律的情况.     

企业家代言人的慈善行为对消费者的作用机制研究

本文从信源的角度对企业家代言人的慈善行为如何影响消费者对其代言产品的购买意向进行了实证研究。研究发现,企业家代言人的慈善行为显著影响消费者的购买意向。即:道德身份自我重要性高的消费者更倾向购买捐时间的企业家所代言的产品,因为捐时间的慈善行为让消费者感知其更有亲和力;道德身份自我重要性低的消费者更倾向购买捐钱的企业家所代言的产品,因为捐钱的慈善行为让消费者感知其有能力。本研究是对营销沟通理论的有益补充,我们探究了企业家代言人的不同类型慈善行为(捐时间和捐钱)产生作用的具体情景。该研究结论为营销实践提供了直接的指导,企业家代言人通过其慈善行为提升消费者信任度时需根据消费者的特点来选择其慈善的类型。     

The component procurement problem for the loss-averse manufacturer with spot purchase

This paper studies the purchasing behaviour of a loss-averse engineer-to-order manufacturer, who purchases a key component for his final product from a supplier under a single-wholesale-price contract with spot purchase opportunities, where both the product demand and the component spot price are uncertain. Through newsvendor type of models, we analyze several key issues, including the effects of the manufacturer's loss aversion, and the effects of demand and spot price uncertainties on the manufacturer's decision behaviour. We find that the purchasing behaviour of the loss-averse manufacturer differs from those of the risk-neutral and risk-averse ones. Specifically, we identify some sufficient conditions under which the loss-averse manufacturer may purchase a larger order quantity in advance when demand becomes more uncertain or when the price becomes more uncertain. We also discuss the two-wholesale-price contract and show that fixing the emergency supply price may lead to a smaller order quantity.     

Inflation,Taxes, and the Demand For Housing*

Inflation affects homeownership and housing adversely through the “real-payment tilt” of the conventional mortgage. Expectations of additional housing price appreciation, however, may induce households to invest in housing. This paper uses household data to estimate the demand for homeownership and housing, and it takes explicit notice of expectations of housing price appreciation. The results indicate for each 1% increase in the inflation rate that the conditional probability of purchase falls by 3%. Interest rate effects outweigh appreciation and tax effects. Given the decision to purchase, housing appreciation expectations do not have large effects on the amount purchased.     

The impact of firm introductory strategies on consumers' perceptions of future product introductions and purchase decisions

In this research, we develop and test a model of the consumer's decision to immediately purchase a technologically advanced product or to delay such a purchase until a future generation of the product is released. We propose that for technologically advancing products, consumers consider both performance lag (how far behind am I now) and expected performance gain (how far ahead will I be if I wait to buy a future expected release) in their purchase decisions. Furthermore, we hypothesize that a firm's past product introductory strategy can significantly influence consumer perceptions of performance lag, performance gain, and the rate at which a product is advancing technologically. We also propose that these perceptions of lag, gain and rate of technological change influence purchase action and ultimately determine whether or not a consumer will delay or immediately purchase a firm's current technological offering. We investigate the above relationships by introducing a model of consumer purchase behavior that incorporates the effects of a firm's frequency and pattern of next generation product introduction, and test the impact of different introductory strategies on performance lag, gain, rate of change perceptions, and purchase action. In our first study we test our model in a monopolistic setting and show that, holding all else fixed, infrequent product upgrades and/or increasing intergenerational release times result in consumers perceiving larger performance lags and gains. We also show that, holding all else fixed, consumers with larger performance lags and/or gains are less likely to delay their purchases of the currently best available product. In our second study we test our model in a competitive setting and show that, holding all else fixed, a firm's past pattern of new product introduction can influence consumers' perceptions of the firm's product's rate of technological change. We also find that consumers are more likely to purchase products which they perceive to have higher rates of technological change. The key insight from this research is that firms have a strategic tool at their disposal that has been overlooked—the pattern of introduction of next generation products. Our findings suggest that a change in the frequency and/or pattern of introduction, in and of themselves, can influence consumers' perceptions of future product introductions, and ultimately influence their purchase actions. Specifically, we demonstrate that by better understanding consumers' purchase timing decisions, firms may be able to induce purchase on the basis of introductory frequency and pattern alone. Additionally, we demonstrate that by strategically managing consumer expectations of future product introductions, firms may be able to decrease the purchase likelihoods of competing products. Implications of our research and its application to the pattern and timing of preannouncements for new products are also explored.     

The burgeoning role of iBuyers in the housing market

We examine the iBuyers’ business model and their impact on housing markets. We find that iBuyers tend to enter neighborhoods that have more easily priced and homogeneous homes, as price discovery is simpler and more consistent with their pricing algorithm in those areas. iBuyers purchase homes at lower prices than individual owner-occupiers, and this acquisition discount reflects the benefits iBuyers offer to motivated sellers rather than distressed home purchases or unobserved lower-quality housing characteristics. Last, a greater presence of iBuyers results in a higher volume of local housing transactions and encourages more home sellers to sell without listing.     

The Incidence of the Land Use Regulatory Tax

Land use regulation has been found to impose a substantial tax on housing within select U.S. metropolitan areas. In this article, we develop hypotheses regarding the incidence of this tax by income class and racial group within these areas. Parcel‐level data from Miami‐Dade County, Florida, are used to test our hypotheses. We find that, while the tax rises with a household's permanent income, this rise is less than proportional, making it a regressive tax. We also find, controlling for household permanent income, that the tax is a higher percentage of the price of homes located in black neighborhoods in comparison to those located in white or Hispanic neighborhoods.     

Do consumers correctly expect price reductions? Testing dynamic behavior

The assumption that consumers are fully rational and hold correct price expectations is demanding in dynamic settings. We claim that it is testable provided that market-level data on prices and purchases are available. We find that consumers hold simple expectations regarding the timing of promotions for music albums: consumers act as if they were aware of reductions but did not revise their beliefs over time. The anticipation effect, due to strategically delaying purchase, amounts to 1/5 of the decision to purchase during regular periods. These results have implications in terms of demand estimation, optimal pricing and welfare computations.