Breastfeeding versus infant formula: the Kenyan case

An Infant Feeding Practices Study (IFPS) in 1982 in Kenya, which included a cross-sectional survey of a weighted sample of 980 low and middle income Nairobi mothers who had given birth in the previous 18 months, found that most women breastfeed their infants for long periods, but many introduce alternate feeding, especially infant formula, in the 1st 4 months (86 and 50% of the infants were breastfed at 6 and 15 months respectively, but 50% of the 2 month-olds and 63% of the 4 month-olds were receiving substitutes, mostly formula). This is done largely out of the belief that infant formula is an additional health benefit. A workshop to discuss the findings of the IFPS and other available data, and to make policy recommendations urged the adoption of a policy of protection, support and promotion of breastfeeding. Since breastfeeding is already widely prevalent in Kenya, protection of breastfeeding should receive the 1st priority in policy related to infant feeding. Attention should be directed at at least 2 influences which help undermine breastfeeding: widespread availability and promotion of breast milk substitutes. Support for breastfeeding is viewed as the 2nd policy priority. Situations where support can play a helpful role are, women's paid employment outside the home, hospital practices, maternal morbidity, and difficulties in breastfeeding. Since promotion is the least cost effective of the 3 options, and most Kenyan women are already motivated to breastfeed, this should be the last priority. Promotion includes reeduction of mothers to make them better aware of the benefits of breastfeeding. The workshop recommended the dissemination of appropriate information, consisting of standarized messages based on clearcut guidelines, using mass media techniques.     

A New Look at the Monday Effect

It is well documented that expected stock returns vary with the day-of-the-week (the Monday or weekend effect). In this article we show that the well-known Monday effect occurs primarily in the last two weeks (fourth and fifth weeks) of the month. In addition, the mean Monday return of the first three weeks of the month is not significantly different from zero. This result holds for most of the subperiods during the 1962–1993 sampling period and for various stock return indexes. The monthly effect reported by Ariel (1987) and Lakonishok and Smidt (1988) cannot fully explain this phenomenon.     

The Effects of Regulating Hidden Add‐On Costs

We examine the welfare effects of price and disclosure regulation in a model where firms can shroud add‐on costs, such as penalty fees for consumer financial products. Such regulation can increase or decrease welfare even when there are no direct costs. There are, however, strong complementarities between price controls and disclosure mandates: conditional on disclosure being mandated, price controls always (weakly) increase welfare, and conditional on prices being sufficiently constrained, disclosure mandates always (weakly) increase welfare.     

THE EXPECTED NUMBER OF COOPERATORS IN THE N‐PERSON PRISONERS’ DILEMMA WITH RANDOM ORDER MOVES*

The present paper examines the possibility of cooperation occurring in the N‐person prisoners’ dilemma, played with randomly ordered moves and imperfect information. To take into account imperfect cooperation, the degree of cooperation is evaluated in terms of the expected number of cooperators. It is shown that: (i) the expected number of cooperators is maximized at an equilibrium, a combination of strategies each of which is a type of trigger strategy; (ii) the maximum expected number of cooperators is attained in a state of imperfect cooperation for a range of payoff functions; and (iii) the maximum expected number of cooperators is non‐decreasing when the size of players’ group increases.