Fish consumption: efficacy among fishermen of a brochure developed for pregnant women

The risk to human consumers from contaminants in fish is often dealt with by issuing consumption advisories, or in some cases, information brochures. Normally advisories and brochures are developed and tested with anglers. We examine the efficacy of a fish consumption brochure that was developed for pregnant women on people engaged in fishing in the Newark Bay Complex. The brochures were in English and Spanish, and subjects could read and be interviewed in either language. Of the 151 people interviewed, 32% were women, 58% spoke only English, 22% spoke mainly Spanish and the rest felt comfortable with both languages. There were no differences in the percent that were present as a function of preferred language. There were significant differences in the understanding of the brochure, depending upon preferred language (and the language of the brochure). In general, anglers preferring Spanish and who read the brochure in Spanish obtained fewer of the messages correctly than those who preferred English (seven of seven questions). There were also gender differences in efficacy of the brochures; a higher percentage of female anglers thought that the fish were not safe to eat from the port and thought that eating contaminated fish from the port could harm their baby. Although the correct message was obtained by 34–100% of the anglers, depending upon the question, and 60–75% of the anglers believed the pamphlet, only 16% (Spanish‐speaking) to 47% (Bilingual) planned on changing the species of fish they eat or the method of cooking. These data suggest that a pamphlet designed for pregnant women is useful for anglers, and they can obtain the ‘correct’ message from it. However, a relatively small percentage of subjects were persuaded to change their cooking or consumption behavior. In addition to television, subjects felt that the direct approach of distributing brochures face‐to‐face was an important method of communication of fish consumers.     

Role of self-caught fish in total fish consumption rates for recreational fishermen: average consumption for some species exceeds allowable intake

Studies of fish consumption focus on recreational or subsistence fishing, on awareness and adherence to advisories, consumption patterns, and contaminants in fish. Yet the general public obtains their fish from commercial sources. In this paper I examine fish consumption patterns of recreational fishermen in New Jersey to determine: (1) consumption rates for self-caught fish and for other fish, (2) meals consumed per year, (3) average meal size, and average daily intake of mercury, and (4) variations in these parameters for commonly-consumed fish, and different methods of computing intake. Over 300 people were interviewed at fishing sites and fishing clubs along the New Jersey shore. Consumption patterns of anglers varied by species of fish. From 2 to 90% of the anglers ate the different fish species, and between 9 and 75% gave fish away to family or friends. Self-caught fish made up 7–92% of fish diets depending upon species. On average, self-caught fish were eaten for only 2–6?months of the year, whereas other fish (commercial or restaurant) were eaten up to 10?months a year. Anglers consumed from 5 to 36 meals of different fish a year, which resulted in intake of mercury ranging from 0.01 to 0.22?μg/kg/day. Average intake of Mako shark, swordfish, and tuna (sushi, canned tuna, self-caught tuna) exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency’s oral, chronic reference dose for mercury of 0.1?μg/kg/day. However, computing intake using consumption for the highest month results in average mercury intake exceeding the reference dose for striped bass and bluefish as well. These data, and the variability in consumption patterns, have implications for risk assessors, risk managers, and health professionals.     

Fish consumption advisories: knowledge,compliance and why people fish in an urban estuary

The risk to human consumers from contaminants in fish is often dealt with by issuing consumption advisories. The hypothesis that consumption rates vary as a function of knowledge about advisories was tested for 254 people fishing in the Newark Bay Complex, in the New York/New Jersey harbour estuary. Interviews were conducted in the complex throughout the fishing season. There were no ethnic differences in the percentage of people who fished, crabbed, or did both, Most people either fished or crabbed, but not both, which has implications for risk assessment and communication. Only 45% of the people interviewed had heard about advisories; American Indians had heard little about fish advisories, and Hispanics had heard little about crab advisories. There were ethnic differences in education, consumption patterns, and knowledge about advisories. Knowledge about consumption advisories and the amount of fish and crabs consumed are negatively correlated. Despite laws forbidding catching (and consuming) crabs from Newark Bay Complex, people continue to do so. A higher percentage of people who consume the most fish and crabs are aware of consumption advisories, compared to those at the low end of consumption, but people who consume no fish or crabs from the Newark Bay Complex have the highest level of knowledge. There are few differences in the ratings of the reasons for fishing between those who are, and are not, aware of advisories. Since people mainly fish and crab to be outdoors and with friends and family, relax, and commune with nature, risk assessors and communicators should acknowledge the social and aesthetic nature of the activity, and address consumption by separating the activity (fishing, crabbing) from the risk (pregnant women and children should limit consumption).     

Selenium:mercury molar ratios in fish from the Savannah River: implications for risk management

The risk to humans from contaminants in fish is dealt with by issuing consumption advisories, which are devised from consumption patterns, contaminant levels, and toxicity of those contaminants. The primary contaminant of concern in fish is mercury, and recently it has been suggested that the protective effects of selenium on mercury toxicity should be considered in risk management. The relationships between mercury, fish species and fish size, and selenium:mercury (Se:Hg) molar ratios were examined for freshwater fish from the Savannah River. The data indicated: (1) significant variation in Se:Hg molar ratios among and within species, (2) mean selenium molar ratios for the 11 species were negatively correlated with mean mercury levels and mean fish length, (3) greater variation in individual variances within species than the variation in mean ratios among species, (4) some species with high mean ratios had individuals with ratios below 1, and (5) even the species with the highest mean ratios had some individuals close to a molar ratio of one. These data suggest that the great variability of the Se:Hg molar ratios within a species results in the ratios being unpredictable. That is, knowing the mean Se:Hg molar ratio for a given species does not predict the ratios of individuals, or thus the protectiveness of selenium on mercury toxicity.     

社会保障与消费关系研究

社会保障本身就是消费的重要组成部分,而且随着社会保障制度的健全和社会保障资金规模的扩大,在居民消费中占比越来越高。由于收入分配差距扩大,引发新的公共消费风险,给社会保障制度带来很大压力;社会保障制度的不完善,使人们对未来消费缺乏信心,提高了人们的消费预期;同时由于社会保障的不完善,使低收入阶层消费能力薄弱,制约消费结构的升级换代。为此,要从分配与再分配人手,增加城乡居民的收入,改革完善社会保障制度,特别关注和提高低收入群体的消费能力,实现社会保障制度完善和促进消费的＂双赢＂。     

Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Households in a Sticky‐Price Model

This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneous households in propagating shocks over the business cycle by generalizing a basic sticky‐price model to allow for imperfect risk sharing between households that differ in labor incomes. I show that imperfectly insured household consumption distorts household incentive to supply labor hours through an idiosyncratic income effect, which in turn generates strategic complementarities in price setting and thus amplifies business cycle fluctuations. This mechanism diminishes the role of nominal rigidities and makes sticky‐price models more consistent with microeconomic evidence on the frequency of price changes.     

Perceptions of protective actions for a water contamination emergency

Local authorities who believe their water systems are contaminated need to warn those at risk to take protective actions. In the past, such efforts have often achieved only partial success in preventing people from deciding to continue consumption of contaminated drinking water. To examine the possible antecedents of decisions to comply with water consumption advisories, this study examined 110 Boston residents’ actual protective actions and 203 Texas students’ expected protective actions; their perceptions of three protective actions on seven attributes; and their risk perceptions, water contamination experience, facilitating conditions, and demographic characteristics. The profiles of the protective actions for the hazard-related and resource-related attributes suggest reasons why people preferred to use bottled water rather than boil or personally chlorinate water. In particular, perceived effectiveness in protecting health was the most important correlate of protective action, which means that a protective action can have a high level of implementation even though it has poor ratings on other attributes such as cost. In addition, this study indicates public health officials may also need to address people’s misconceptions about the hazard-related and resource-related attributes of any relevant protective actions. Finally, consistent with an extensive body of previous research, students were similar to residents in many important respects even though were some statistically significant differences.     

Optimal Fiscal Policy with Consumption Taxation

We characterize optimal fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and endogenous public spending. The government can tax consumption, as alternative to labor income taxes. Consumption taxation acts as indirect taxation of profits (intratemporal gains of taxing consumption) and enables the policymaker to manage the burden of public debt more efficiently (intertemporal gains of taxing consumption). We show analytically that these two gains imply that the optimal share of government spending is higher under consumption taxation than with labor income taxation. Then, we quantify numerically each of these gains by calibrating the model on the U.S. economy.     

Axiomatization of residual income and generation of financial securities

This paper presents an axiomatization of residual income, also known as excess profit, and illustrates how it can univocally give rise to fixed-income or variable-income assets. In the first part it is shown that, depending on the relations between excess profit and the investor's excess wealth, a well-specified theory of residual income is generated: one is the standard theory, which historically traces back to Hamilton and Marshall and is a deep-rooted notion in economic theory, finance, and accounting. Another is the systemic value added or lost-capital paradigm: first introduced by Magni, the theory is enfolded in Keynes's notion of user cost and is naturally generated by an arbitrage-theory perspective. In the second part, the paper inverts the usual analysis: instead of computing residual incomes from a pattern of cash flows, residual incomes are fixed first to derive vectors of cash flows. It is shown that variable- or fixed-income assets may be constructed on the basis of either theory starting from pre-determined growth rates for residual income. In particular, zero-coupon bonds and coupon bonds traded in a capital market are shown to be deduced as equilibrium vectors of residual-income-based assets.     

个人所得税改革对居民消费的效应评价与完善路径

当前我国居民消费不足的最主要原因在于居民收入水平不高、国民收入分配失衡,所以2018年个人所得税改革的重点是提高费用扣除标准、调整税率结构,降低纳税人负担,增加纳税人可支配收入,提高居民消费水平。要进一步促进居民消费,个人所得税有必要继续减税,同时进一步调节收入分配差距,使收入分配更加公平。具体对策包括:将专项附加扣除中的子女教育支出范围扩大为子女养育支出,增加家庭合并征税模式,费用扣除标准指数化动态调整,进一步优化税率结构,建立负所得税制度。     

Correspondence between lifetime minimum wealth and utility of consumption

We establish when the two problems of minimizing a function of lifetime minimum wealth and of maximizing utility of lifetime consumption result in the same optimal investment strategy on a given open interval O in wealth space. To answer this question, we equate the two investment strategies and show that if the individual consumes at the same rate in both problems—the consumption rate is a control in the problem of maximizing utility—then the investment strategies are equal only when the consumption function is linear in wealth on O, a rather surprising result. It then follows that the corresponding investment strategy is also linear in wealth and the implied utility function exhibits hyperbolic absolute risk aversion.      

The Consumption–Income Ratio,Entrepreneurial Risk,and the U.S. Stock Market

The owners of small noncorporate businesses face substantial and largely uninsurable entrepreneurial risk. They are also an important group of stock owners. This paper explores the role of entrepreneurial risk in explaining time variation in expected U.S. stock returns in the period 1952–2010. It proposes an entrepreneurial distress factor that is based on a cointegrating relationship between aggregate consumption and income from proprietary and nonproprietary wealth. This factor, referred to here as the cpy residual, signals when entrepreneurial income is low in relation to aggregate consumption and other forms of income in the economy. It is highly correlated with cross‐sectional measures of idiosyncratic entrepreneurial and default risk, and it has considerable forecasting power for the expected equity premium. However, the correlation between cpy and the stock market started to decline at the beginning of the 1980s. The decline in this correlation can be associated with increased stock market participation and with the progress of U.S. state‐level bank deregulation. This pattern is consistent with the view that entrepreneurial risk became more easily diversifiable in the wake of U.S. state‐level bank deregulation.     

个人所得税、城镇居民收入与消费关系实证研究

运用动态计量方法对个人所得税和城镇居民收入对城镇居民消费的影响进行的实证分析表明:长期来看收入是影响城镇居民消费行为的主要因素,但由于平滑消费倾向、收支预期的不确定性,在短期城镇居民收入增加对消费的促进作用较小;在现阶段,由于个税相对规模、征收范围、征收率、纳税方式的制约,个人所得税并未真正成为制约城镇居民消费的因素;在长期城镇居民消费表现出棘轮效应。     

西部地区城镇化发展水平对居民消费需求关系实证研究

运用Panel Data模型和方法,依据西部地区11个省区2000～2014年数据,考量西部地区城镇化发展水平、城乡收入差距与居民消费需求差异的相互关系.结果发现,西部地区城镇化发展水平对居民消费需求有正向促进作用,城乡收入差距是导致居民消费需求的关键性原因所在.鉴此,应通过优化城镇布局和加大城镇基础设施投入,吸引人口进入城镇,提升城镇化率,同时,缩小西部地区城乡收入差距,提高居民消费需求,提升西部地区城镇化质量.     

我国汽车消费的现状与影响因素分析

汽车产业具有高度的关联性,其发展直接影响到相关行业的发展,对经济发展具有巨大的促进作用,是我国新的经济增长点。影响我国汽车消费的主要因素有宏观经济环境、消费者收入状况、消费政策、消费环境、城市规划与交通管理等方面。     

Lifetime asset allocation with idiosyncratic and systematic mortality risks

This paper considers a lifetime asset allocation problem with both idiosyncratic and systematic mortality risks. The novelty of the paper is to integrate stochastic mortality, stochastic interest rate and stochastic income into a unified framework. An investor, who is a wage earner receiving a stochastic income, can invest in a financial market, consume part of his wealth and purchase life insurance or annuity so as to maximize the expected utility from consumption, terminal wealth and bequest. The problem is solved via the dynamic programming principle and the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation. Analytical solutions to the problem are derived, and numerical examples are provided to illustrate our results. It is shown that idiosyncratic mortality risk has significant impacts on the investor’s investment, consumption, life insurance/annuity purchase and bequest decisions regardless of the length of the decision-making horizon. The systematic mortality risk is largely alleviated by trading the longevity bond. However, its impacts on consumption, purchase of life insurance/annuity and bequest as well as the value function are still pronounced, when the decision-making horizon is sufficiently long.     

On International Consumption Risk Sharing,Financial Integration and Financial Development

This article investigates the empirical link between international consumption risk sharing, financial integration, and financial development for a group of twenty-nine developed and developing countries in the G7, the Euro area, and the OECD. Estimation results indicate that (1) risk sharing in the Euro area is higher than those in the G-7 and the OECD, and (2) a higher degree of risk sharing is associated with a greater degree of financial integration and a lower level of financial development. These results suggest that more financially integrated countries might be better able to insure themselves against idiosyncratic income shocks and countries with more developed financial markets might tend to engage in less consumption risk sharing with other countries thanks to their own sophisticated financial markets. Holding financial integration and financial development equal, countries in the Euro area engage in significantly more risk sharing than the ones in the G7 and the OECD.     

内蒙古地区城镇居民肉类消费需求研究

本文以具有典型内陆消费特点的内蒙古地区为例,通过构建修正的AIDS模型即LA/AIDS模型和扩展的LES模型即ELES模型,利用2000年到2011年内蒙古城镇居民肉类消费的时间序列数据,对该地区城镇居民消费结构的变化趋势进行了实证分析。结果表明：当收入增加时,人们会更多的消费羊肉和牛肉,在考虑价格因素后,猪、牛、羊、鸡四种主要肉类消费支出份额趋于平衡;牛羊肉自价格弹性绝对值较大,但四种肉类都属于生活必需品。     

Extrapolating understanding of food risk perceptions to emerging food safety cases

Important determinants of risk perceptions associated with foods are the extent to which the potential hazards are perceived to have technological or naturally occurring origins, together with the acute vs. chronic dimension in which the potential hazard is presented (acute or chronic). This study presents a case study analysis based on an extensive literature review examining how these hazard characteristics affect people’s risk and benefit perceptions, and associated attitudes and behaviors. The cases include E. coli incidences (outbreaks linked to fresh spinach and fenugreek sprouts), contamination of fish by environmental pollutants, (organochlorine contaminants in farmed salmon), radioactive contamination of food following a nuclear accident (the Fukushima accident in Japan), and GM salmon destined for the human food chain. The analysis of the cases over the acute vs. chronic dimension suggests that longitudinal quantification of the relationship between risk perceptions and impacts is important for both acute and chronic food safety, but this has infrequently been applied to chronic hazards. Technologies applied to food production tend to potentially be associated with higher levels of risk perception, linked to perceptions that the risk is unnatural. However, for some risks (e.g. those involving biological irreversibility), moral or ethical concerns may be more important determinants of consumer responses than risk or benefit perceptions. (Lack of) trust has been highlighted in all of the cases suggesting transparent and honest risk–benefit communications following the occurrence of a food safety incident. Implications for optimizing associated risk communication strategies, additional research linking risk perception, and other quantitative measures, including comparisons in time and space, are suggested.     

我国民生保障支出与居民消费的关系分析

本文从理论和实证两个角度分析了我国民生保障支出对居民消费的影响。一方面,本文通过描绘消费者的消费模式图,指出阶段性＂大额刚性支出＂的存在抑制了居民消费水平的提高;另一方面,我国现行的财政分权体制和官员激励制度促进政府投资,挤压居民消费。在此理论基础上,文章构建了居民消费与收入、民生支出的计量模型。本文以1978—2011年的相关数据,分别进行单位根检验、协整、向量误差修正模型、格兰杰因果关系检验等深入分析了民生支出对居民消费的影响。理论和实证结果均表明,政府增加民生保障投入能够促进居民消费。