Do consumers view the nutrition facts panel when making healthfulness assessments of food products? Antecedents and consequences

Consumer use of the Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP) is an important topic of interest to researchers and public policymakers. Studies conducted in the United States and elsewhere find high levels of self-reported use of the NFP or its equivalent. However, data from self-reports may inflate estimated NFP use due to social desirability problems. Utilizing data from an online experiment, we examine whether consumers choose to view the NFP when assessing the nutritional properties and disease-fighting abilities of foods. We also examine the antecedents of NFP-viewing behavior and its implications for the accuracy of healthfulness judgments and the potential for overgeneralization. We conclude with a discussion of the public policy implications of our results and point to directions for future research.     

Advertising effects on consumer welfare: Prices paid and liking for brands selected

The effect of advertising on consumer welfare has been the subject of dispute among economists, arising largely from disagreement among scholars regarding the persuasive versus the informative role of advertising. This paper reports two experiments that explore the welfare implications of advertising effects. Experiment 1 shows that the same advertisements can either increase or decrease prices paid for selected brands, depending on the degree to which the choice situation requires brands to be recalled in order to be considered. However, an increase in prices paid caused by advertising does not necessarily imply detrimental effects on consumer welfare. Experiment 2 shows that, even under circumstances in which differentiating advertising leads consumers to select brands with higher average prices, it can provide useful information to consumers that allows them to make purchases that are more in line with their personal tastes than are the choices of consumers not exposed to the advertisements.     

Consumer Skepticism of Claims in Food Ads vs. on Food Labels: An Exploration of Differences and Antecedents

Considerable evidence shows that consumers are skeptical of advertising, that is, have a tendency to doubt the truth of advertising claims. The main focus of our paper is to explore, in the context of food products, whether this typically high level of skepticism is also exhibited for product labels. In addition, we look at consumer skepticism associated with health claims in food ads and labels as well as with the Nutrition Facts Panel on food packages. Finally, we examine some individual difference factors that might influence consumer skepticism. We report the results of a large‐scale survey designed to explore these issues, and we discuss the implications of our findings for public policy and future research.     

Financial liberalization and remittances: Recent panel evidence

We investigate the impact of financial liberalization on remittances to 84 countries over the period 1986–2005. Explicitly accounting for the multidimensionality of financial reform, we find that the various dimensions impact remittances differently: Increased economic freedom in the financial sector, as captured by absence of direct government control over the allocation of credit, has a positive and immediate impact. However, the improved robustness of financial markets, as captured by the development of security markets, improvement in the quality of banking supervision, and removal of stringent restrictions on interest rates and international capital, has a negative and lagged effect. The net combined effect reveals that financial liberalization may have a modest negative impact on remittances in the long run.     

Infrastructure,returns to scale and sovereign debt

This paper explores the nexus between the issue of sovereign debt and investment in infrastructure, emphasizing the case of economies of scale. The focus is on debt contracts that are incentive compatible. It is shown that public and private financial institutions may need to lend amounts above some threshold to force the borrowing sovereign to take full advantage of any economies of scale that may be present. Low levels of lending may or may not result in default. Sufficiently high amounts of lending may be needed to ensure repayment and may prove to be mutually beneficial.     

On equitable social welfare functions satisfying the Weak Pareto Axiom: A complete characterization

The present paper examines the problem of aggregating infinite utility streams with a social welfare function that respects the Anonymity and Weak Pareto Axioms. The paper provides a complete characterization of domains (of the one period utilities) on which such an aggregation is possible. A social welfare function satisfying the Anonymity and Weak Pareto Axioms exists on precisely those domains that do not contain any set of the order type of the set of positive and negative integers. The criterion is applied to decide on possibility and impossibility results for a variety of domains. It is also used to provide an alternative formulation of the characterization result in terms of the accumulation points of the domain.     

An E-Valuation Framework for Developing Net-Enabled Business Metrics Through Functionality Interaction

Managers engaged in net-enabled business planning seek metrics to help them analyze the success of their e-business investments. Likewise, researchers require metrics to build analytical models and conduct empirical research on the impact of e-business strategies on firm performance. In this article, the authors develop a comprehensive E-Valuation Framework for identifying net-enabled applications and their resulting user-based functionalities for activities across the value chain. The authors propose that the real value from net-enabled applications can be found in functionality interactions, where one application enables or enhances functionality in another application. The comprehensive framework can be used to generate three types of metrics managers can use to evaluate their net-enabled strategic initiatives. Further, a classification of net-enabled organizations provides the basis for selecting applications critical to a firm's strategic thrusts. We make use of the resource-based view of the firm and real-options analysis to discuss how successful application deployment is based on the resources and assets the firm possesses as well as managing the rollout of an applications portfolio over time. The framework allows managers to map their organization's net-enabled initiatives into a coherent, easily understood visual representation and provides direction for researchers evaluating the efficacy of net-enabled business strategies.     

On the Welfare Significance of National Product for Economic Growth and Sustainable Development

This paper formulates an investment value transversality condition in a continuous-time growth model, which characterizes competitive paths along which current net national product measures the welfare achieved along the path. This transversality condition requires that the present value of net investment goes to zero asymptotically. An example provided shows that, in general, competitive paths do not necessarily satisfy this condition. It is also shown that, in a standard growth model including an exhaustible resource as an essential factor of production, competitive paths always satisfy this condition. Implications regarding national income accounting procedures and sustainable development policies are discussed.
JEL Classification Numbers: D90; O11; O41; Q32.     

On the Existence of Chaotic Policy Functions in Dynamic Optimization

Applying the characterization results from Mitra and Sorger (1999), we show that topological chaos is a robust phenomenon in standard aggregative growth models even under arbitrary mild discounting. Furthermore, we state exact discount factor restrictions, under which two of the most popular examples of chaotic dynamics, the logistic map and the tent map, can be optimal policy functions of aggregative growth models.
JEL Classification Numbers: C61, O41.