Organic food consumption in Europe: International segmentation based on value system differences

In this paper, we analyze the market for organic products in eight European countries, based on differences in their respective value systems. With a significant sample of 8014 consumers, we first identify international segments in the European organic products market using the Values Theory. Then we apply the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine how European consumers use attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control to form their purchase intention for organic products. Results show that subjective norms are the main underlying factor driving consumer behavior concerning these products. This effect is higher for the group of countries whose citizens score higher on Schwartz's value scale. In this segment of countries, people are more likely to be affected by what others think, which means that the best approach is to increase social awareness of the relevance of purchasing organic products. Organic products represent a potentially profitable opportunity for companies with an international horizon. Results are also useful for consumers and public administrations.     

Why do we adopt environmentally friendly lawn care? Evidence from do-it-yourself consumers

This study identifies the factors determining the purchase frequencies of organic/natural fertilizers (ONFs) with a focus on do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers’ perceptions and motives. The estimation results of the generalized ordered logit model provide statistical evidence that environmental perceptions are critical factors in directing DIY consumers to purchase ONFs frequently. The results imply that educational programmes, informational campaigns, or advertisements to improve their perceptions on the potential negative impacts of fertilization on the environment may increase the purchase frequencies of ONFs. In addition, the results show that DIY consumers perceive that it is worth using ONFs despite their higher prices than chemical fertilizers. Their purchase frequencies will increase if they positively perceive the values of ONFs and are willing to pay a premium for ONFs. Moreover, the purchasing behaviour of DIY consumers is associated with their perceptions of neighbourhood landscaping. If neighbours or homeowner associations encourage landscaping improvements in their community, DIY consumers may increase their purchase frequencies of ONFs accordingly.     

RISK ATTITUDES AND THE DEMAND FOR PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE: THE IMPORTANCE OF 'CAPTIVE PREFERENCES'

ABSTRACT ** :  Captivity to a mainstream public insurer, is hypothesized to constrain the choice of purchasing private health insurance, by influencing risk attitudes. Namely, risk averse individuals are more likely to stay captive to the National Health System (NHS). To empirically test this hypothesis we use a small scale database from Catalonia to explore the determinants of private health insurance (PHI) purchase under different forms of captivity along with a measure of risk attitudes. Our results confirm that the captivity corrections are significant and can potentially bias the estimates of the demand for PHI. Risk aversion increases the probability of an individual being captive to the NHS. The latter suggests a potential behavioural (or cultural) mechanism to isolate the influence of risk attitudes on the demand for PHI in publicly financed health systems.     

来源国形象、消费者偏见与中国品牌跨国营销——中国电子产品在美国的品牌来源国效应检验

来源国效应对一国产品的海外销售产生着重要影响。本文以在美国销售的中国H公司运动手表作为被试商品,在606份有效样本基础上,通过多元线性回归验证了中国品牌电子产品在美国的来源国效应。通过与其他七个国家进行对比,本文发现,虽然中国在美国消费者心目中的产品国家形象较为正面,但相对中国经济地位和产品质量而言,美国消费者对中国电子产品和中国品牌的“来源国偏见”普遍存在,“Made in China”目前仍是中国品牌在美国营销的不利因素。在以往研究的基础上,本文将来源国效应中的产品国家形象划分为整体绩效形象、整体制度形象和产品类属形象,在此基础上检验了多个消费者因素对来源国效应的调节作用,首次检验了消费者网购依赖度对消费者购买倾向的影响,并且发现消费者产品知识负向调节来源国效应,这一结论可以导出明确的管理启示。本文结论进一步深化了来源国效应相关研究,弥补了发展中国家逆向拓展发达国家市场时来源国效应研究的不足。     

Community-based incentives for environmental protection: the case of green electricity

This paper examines the effectiveness of using community-level rewards to subsidize environmental protection. Specifically, we study the Connecticut Clean Energy Communities (CCEC) program that provides mostly symbolic rewards in the form of municipal photovoltaic installations in proportion to the number of households that voluntarily purchase green electricity. We find that the program causes a 22 % increase in the number of households purchasing green electricity in CCEC municipalities. The pattern of results suggests that the CCEC leads to the mobilization of community-based recruitment campaigns that increase signup rates by up to 700 % around the period of initial qualification. We also find that a change in the marginal incentive created by the program has little consequence on signup behavior. The implication for policy is that community-based incentives can be effective, but the size of the subsidy itself appears less important. Finally, simple calculations based on CCEC up-front costs reveal upper-bound, cost-effectiveness measures of $570 per household signup, 6.7 $\not {c} $ per kilowatt-hour of annual green-electricity demand, and $113 per ton of annual carbon-dioxide emission reductions.     

Environmental Product Differentiation and Environmental Awareness

In this paper, we have considered a duopolistic model of environmental product differentiation with two types of consumers (green and brown) to analyze how environmental awareness affects the environment. “Green” consumers value the physical and environmental attributes of the good they purchase while “brown” consumers only value the physical attributes. We find that more environmental awareness may not be good news for the environment as the firm that produces the good without environmental attributes may increase its sales. The result depends on the degree of product differentiation and the cost to achieve it. Social welfare can also be inversely related to environmental awareness if the negative environmental effect dominates the positive market effect.      

Market Inertia and the Introduction of Green Products: Can Strategic Effects Justify the Porter Hypothesis?

If, according to Porter’s hypothesis, a “greener” strategy is more profitable, why may its implementation need regulatory intervention? We present a repeated Cournot duopoly where the market may exhibit inertia towards the adoption of even cost-efficient environmental goods. With consumers recognizing that a product is green only with a time lag, if a firm unilaterally adopts the green product initially loses profit due to (a) increased costs (direct effect) and (b) reduced market share (strategic effect). By imposing simultaneous adoption, regulation eliminates (b), thus enhancing long-run profitability. Through a similar mechanism a government can increase its domestic firms’ international market share and profits by forcing them to simultaneously adopt the green product.     

服务品牌形象提升策略研究——基于酒店业的实证研究

由于大多数的服务具有体验和信任属性,因而消费者购买服务的感知风险要高于购买产品。作为可以把"无形因素有形化"的一种外在线索,服务品牌形象在降低消费者搜寻成本和感知风险方面的作用就变得异常突出。以21 8个酒店企业作为样本,作者对服务品牌形象的改进是否会提升企业的绩效表现,以及何种服务策略会提升服务品牌形象进行了实证检验。结果显示,服务品牌形象对市场绩效有正向的影响,而市场绩效又进而正向地影响财务绩效;服务定位、品牌管理和服务创新管理对品牌形象具有显著的正向影响,顾客参与管理、顾客关系管理和服务补救管理对品牌形象不具有显著影响。服务企业应有效地管理服务定位、服务品牌和服务创新来提升服务品牌形象。     

消费者对可追溯食品的态度、购买意愿及影响因素——基于北京市调查的检验与分析

本文在依据消费者对可追溯食品需求函数确定消费者购买决策准则的基础上,运用Logistic二元选择模型实证检验并分析了北京市消费者对可追溯食品的态度、购买意愿及影响因素。主要结论如下:消费者对可追溯食品的认知度较低,对可追溯食品的购买意愿不显著;除了价格是影响消费者购买意愿的主要因素外,消费者对食品安全的信心、是否是家庭主要食品购买者、收入水平、对安全信息的关心、年龄、对可追溯食品的认知、食品安全责任人重视程度等是影响消费者对可追溯食品购买意愿的非常显著性因素。     

Conformity and the Demand for Environmental Goods

The existing literature on eco-labeling and green consumerism has been framed within a classical market context where price and quality are the drivers of consumer choice. However, it seems possible that consumers are also concerned about the choices made by other consumers. In fact, it is unclear that people’s consumption decisions are made independently of social context. For instance, under the desire to conform to certain social norms—or in the presence of status concerns—some individuals may be willing to pay a higher price premium for green products the more widespread green consumerism is in society. We test this hypothesis using a choice experiment where the respondents were asked to choose among coffee products varying with respect to their share of ecological beans, share of fair trade beans, and price. Three treatments were used, differing only in the information given about the choices made by other consumers. We find different responses to the treatments across individuals and we can only confirm our hypothesis of conformity for women, although men appear to have stronger preferences for ecological coffee than women have.     

对家庭农产品购买行为模式的探究——基于四川安县城镇家庭的调查

文章从消费者购买行为理论模式的比较入手,对家庭农产品购买的主要特征、决策方式及购买行为过程进行了分析,并结合四川安县城镇家庭购买畜禽产品的调查数据,建立logit模型对影响家庭农产品购买行为的选择因素进行了验证,在对霍金斯的消费者购买决策过程模式分析的基础上,对我国家庭购买农产品的行为模式进行了探讨和研究,构建了适合我国国情的家庭农产品购买行为模式。     

消费者对高端猪肉的购买行为及其影响因素分析——基于北京市的实地调研

利用来自针对北京市消费者的378份调查问卷的数据,运用Logistic回归模型,分析消费者对高端猪肉的购买行为及其影响因素。研究结果显示:三分之一的被调查者购买过高端猪肉,其中多数人的月平均购买量不超过10斤;整体来说,质量安全更有保证是人们购买高端猪肉的首要原因,价格太高是人们不购买的首要原因;家庭月平均收入、品牌、价格、性别等显著影响消费者是否购买高端猪肉;家庭月平均收入、学历、"五花肉"、高端猪肉认知水平、高端猪肉认知内容等显著影响消费者对高端猪肉的购买数量。最后提出相关对策建议。     

Purchasing Power Parity and Interest Parity in the Laboratory

This paper analyses purchasing power parity and uncovered interest parity in the laboratory. It finds strong evidence that purchasing power parity, covered interest parity, and uncovered interest parity hold. Subjects are endowed with an intrinsically useless (green) currency that can be used to purchase another useless (red) currency. Green goods can be bought only with green currency, and red goods can be bought only with red currency. The foreign exchange markets are organised as call markets. In the treatment analysing purchasing power parity, the price of the red good varies. In a second treatment, the interest rate on red currency varies. In a third treatment, the interest rate on red currency varies, and the price of the red good is random.     

Making employees partners in the health care purchasing decision

Bringing employees into the health care purchasing decision as informed consumers allows employees and employers to work together to purchase high-quality, cost-effective care.     

Biofuels and Climate Change Mitigation: A CGE Analysis Incorporating Land-Use Change

We examine the impact of a “green network effect” in a market characterized by consumers’ environmental awareness and competition between firms in terms of both environmental quality and product prices. The unique aspect of this model comes from the assumption that an increase in the number of consumers of green (brown) product increases the satisfaction of each green (brown) consumer. We show that, paradoxically, when the network effect of a green product is higher than that of a brown product, this externality reduces product environmental quality and raises consumption of the green product. Conversely, when the network effect of the brown product is higher, the externality improves product environmental quality and raises consumption of the brown product. In both cases, the network effect does not affect the overall pollution level. The externality correction requires the use of three optimal fiscal policies: an ad valorem tax on products, an emission tax, and a subsidy or a tax on the green purchase. A second-best optimum can also be reached through the green taxation.     

Are Underground Workers More Likely to be Underground Consumers?

We investigate the impact of working in the underground sector on the demand for underground commodities. Using a tax evasion model with costly information, we show that the presence of a network effect encourages underground workers to purchase underground commodities. The model is estimated using a unique Canadian microdata set for 1993. An increase in underground hours of work has a strong positive effect on the probability of purchasing underground commodities and on the level of expenditures. This relationship has a sizable effect on the impact of tax and enforcement parameters on the level of the underground economy.     

基于TPB的中国消费者绿色消费行为的综合模型

影响消费者绿色消费态度、意图和行为的因素众多,且错综复杂。本文结合中国消费者的社会文化的特点,回顾形成绿色消费态度、意向和行为的众多因素,并以计划行为理论(TPB)为基础,形成一个综合的理论模型.作为进一步研究的基础。     

消费行为的模糊数学模型

在购物指标体系的基础上,利用模糊数学原理,建立消费者购物的数学模型,并编出模型的计算机程序和软件,使购物者能在计算机上自行操作,以便科学、合理、有比较的选择自己所购物品,满足消费心理需求。     

消费者对可追溯性食品的购买行为研究——基于北京市海淀区消费者调查的分析

根据关于北京市海淀区的消费者消费可追溯性食品的调查数据,考察了消费者对可追溯性食品的认知水平和购买意愿,并利用二元Logistic回归模型分析了影响消费者购买意愿的主要因素。结果表明:虽然消费者普遍关注食品安全问题,但是对可追溯性食品的认知程度较低;消费者的教育程度、收入水平、健康状况和对可追溯性食品的关注程度、认知程度、信任程度以及对食品安全因素的重视程度是影响消费者购买意愿的主要因素。     

虚拟灰色市场中消费者购物意愿影响因素实证研究

随着电子商务的发展,因特网上涌现出很多出售水货商品的店铺,虚拟水货市场规模在不断扩大,究竟哪些因素促使消费者愿意选择在虚拟灰色市场选购商品值得深入探讨。通过分析虚拟灰色市场中消费者购物意愿的影响因素,提出了一个结构方程模型,并对模型进行了实证检验,研究发现,在虚拟灰色市场中,感知有用性和商品价值正向影响消费者购买意愿,风险则负向影响购买意愿,消费者的价值质量推论会正向影响消费者感知商品价值。