The relationship between risk experience and risk response: a study of farmers and climate change

Within the existing literature, the role of experience of risk on attitudinal and behavioural risk response has been relatively neglected. Recent research that draws on the psychological distance of climate change as a concept notes the importance of local, significant experience as a driver for encouraging appropriate response. The experience of flooding was used as the stimulus in this paper, and emphasis placed on whether direct and/or indirect experience of flood risk is associated with different responses to climate change risk. In order to explore the relationship between climate change risk experience and response in the form of on-farm mitigation and adaptation, this paper draws on a case study of farmers in England, many of whom have experienced flooding. Results from a quantitative survey undertaken with 200 farmers in Gloucestershire, England are discussed. Statistical analysis found experience of flooding to be significantly associated with a heightened concern for climate change. Although also finding an association between experience and behavioural response, the sample were most likely to be taking adaptive behaviour as part of normal practice, with factors such as lack of overall concern for climate change risk and absence of information and advice likely to be the main barriers to action. Risk communication needs to further emphasise the connection between climate change and extreme weather events to allow for farmers to perceive climate change as a relevant and locally salient phenomenon, and subsequent tailored information and advice should be offered to clearly illustrate the best means of on-farm response. Where possible, emphasis must be placed on actions that also enable adaptation to other, more immediate risks which farmers in this study more readily exhibited concern for, such as market volatility.     

Economic modelling of costs associated with outcomes reported for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in the CANVAS and EMPA-REG cardiovascular outcomes trials

Aims: To model direct medical costs associated with reductions in cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in T2DM patients reported in the CANVAS and EMPA-REG trials, which assessed the cardiovascular safety of canagliflozin and empagliflozin, respectively.

Materials and methods: Costs were modeled from a US managed care organization (MCO) perspective for the CVD outcomes included in both trials: three-point major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE) and its components (cardiovascular-related death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke), as well as heart failure requiring hospitalization. The rate of CVD events averted (difference between study drug and placebo) was projected to the portion of an MCO T2DM population matching the respective trial’s inclusion criteria. A targeted literature search for paid amounts directly associated with each CVD event provided the unit costs, which were applied to the projected number of events averted, to calculate costs avoided per member per year (PMPY). One-way sensitivity analyses were performed on events averted, unit costs, and percentages of trial-applicable patients.

Results: Based on three-point MACE events averted, costs avoided PMPY of $6.17 (range: $1.27–$10.94) for CANVAS and $2.75 ($0.19–$4.83) for EMPA-REG were estimated. Costs avoided for individual components of MACE ranged from $0.77 to $3.84 PMPY for CANVAS and from -$0.97 (additional costs) to $1.54 for EMPA-REG. PMPY costs avoided for heart failure were $2.72 for CANVAS and $1.32 for EMPA-REG.

Limitations and conclusions: Models assumed independent, non-recurrent outcomes and were restricted to medical costs directly associated with the trial-reported events. The reductions in CVD events in T2DM patients reported for both CANVAS and EMPA-REG project to a positive cost avoidance for these events in an MCO population. The analysis did not include an assessment of the impact on total cost, as the costs associated with adverse events, drug utilization or other clinical outcomes were not examined.     

The unrealized value of incentivized eWOM recommendations

While companies have recognized the perceived economic benefits of encouraging and managing electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), the benefits may be understated. Companies take into account the influence on the audience. But, what about any effects on the person who communicates the eWOM? We explore the impact that incentivized eWOM has on communicator attitude. Using the saying is believing effect as our theoretical foundation, we suggest that providing eWOM induces a change in the communicator’s attitude. By generating and providing a biased recommendation, the communicator will believe the biased recommendation. Furthermore, the communicator is likely to remember the biased recommendation and will use it to update their attitude. We examine how valence of recommendations (negative versus positive) and the number of opportunities to recommend affect the change in attitude. Our findings indicate that providing recommendations changes communicator’s attitude. Implications of the results are discussed.     

The out-of-region bias: Distance estimations based on geographic category membership

This research addresses estimations of distance, an important factor in numerous consumer decisions (e.g., store choice, willingness to pay for travel). Our central hypothesis is that when two places are located in the same geographic category, individuals estimate them to be closer to each other than when they are located in different categories, a bias we term ??the out-of-region bias.?? In study 1, we demonstrate that participants are more willing to visit a store located in the city in which they live rather than a store located in a neighboring city because they mistakenly think that a store in their city is closer to home. In studies 2a and b, we show that the out-of-region bias leads consumers to express higher willingness to pay for an airline ticket that involves travel across versus within regions because they inaccurately estimate greater distance between cities that are located in different regions (vs. the same region). Study 2a also demonstrates that the out-of-region bias is ameliorated in the presence of a map, indicating that the bias is a conceptual (vs. perceptual) bias, and study 2b rules out an alternative explanation for our results based on consumers?? tendency to exaggerate north?Csouth distances.     

Reflexive Local and Regional Economic Development and International Policy Transfer

This article looks at the international dimension of local and regional economic development policy. We illustrate our argument about the difficulties of comparing the relative effectiveness of policy using the experience of a comparative study of local and regional economic development in Australia, the US, England and Northern Ireland. The empirical work suggests that the preferred tools of local economic development and their locally perceived effectiveness vary but that careful interpretation is necessary to understand why this is the case. Given that international policy exchange is neither inherently bad nor good, but that it is inevitable, we argue for further exploration of the process of cross-national policy transfer to ensure we are learning appropriate lessons.     

A case study of land reform and coastal land transformation in southern Sonora, Mexico

This paper examines the coastal ejido (collectives of peasant landholders) sector's response to the 1992 amendment to Article 27 of Mexico's Constitution, which for the first time legalized the sale and rental of ejido lands. Our analysis is based on a case study of southern Sonora, Mexico. The results indicate a shift in land tenure from the ejido to the private sector and a corresponding conversion of coastal lands to shrimp aquaculture ponds. Our analysis suggests these land-tenure and land-use changes, and the implications of these changes for the coastal ejido sector, vary depending on the historical, geographic and socio-economic characteristics of the ejido communities.     

Is the locus of poverty changing?

Urbanization is now a dominant demographic phenomenon in low- and middle-income countries. By the year 2000, half of the world's population will live in urban areas; of this half, two thirds will be in developing countries, predominantly in Asia. Whether there will be a corresponding shift of poverty from rural to urban areas is the central question of this analysis. Evidence from cross-sectional, time-series, and case data indicates that the percent of poverty in urban areas is dependent on income levels, income growth, and income distribution. The evidence also indicates that the number of poor in rural areas will exceed those in urban areas well into the 21st century. These poverty and urbanization trends are significant politically, and important also with respect to food policy and required investments in agriculture.     

Pay discrimination and imperfect competition in the labor market

Recent work has shown the prevalence of monopsony power in labor markets characterized by low pay. Monopsony has long been offered as a potential explanation of labor market discrimination. Yet, in the case of gender discrimination, most studies suggest that female labor supply is more elastic than that of males which, in a standard monopsony model, would imply higher pay for females. In the current paper we develop a theoretical framework capable of reconciling these empirical phenomena. We also attempt to explain: (i) the puzzle regarding the apparent trade-off between profits and discrimination in the standard neoclassical treatment of discrimination associated with the work of Becker (1957) and Arrow (1973) and (ii) the apparently paradoxical increase in female relative employment at a time of a significant rise in the relative price of female labor.     

RETIREMENT POLICY IN FRENCH AGRICULTURE

A supplementary retirement grant (I. V.D.) has been the most important of a range of measures introduced since 1962 as a solution to social and structural problems in French agriculture. Although one-third of the country's agricultural area has been transferred through the scheme, there has been no revolutionary change in farm sizes. The restructuring required by the policy has been relatively slight and the economic attractions of the retirement grant have declined, particularly since the early 1970's. Problems have also arisen from the uneven spatial adoption of the pension, from internal contradictions within the scheme and from the lack of co-ordination with other aspects of government support for agriculture and regional development policy.