Public Attitude Toward Urban Agriculture in Malaysia: Study on Values and Knowledge in Klang Valley

Urban agriculture has drawn attention in Malaysia as a response to economic crisis, food security, and sustainable development. As population grows, the need to provide more jobs and food is becoming more complex both economically and physically. There is no doubt that in Malaysia urban agriculture will play a key role in the livelihood strategies of urban households. The interest in urban agriculture in the country has brought with it the reason to explore public attitude toward getting more involved in this practice. Cross-sectional data were collected, via a structured questionnaire, to gather information on how household values shape attitudes toward urban agriculture. Exploratory factor analysis is used to categorize values, while multiple regression analysis predicts the significant relationship between household knowledge, assigned values, underling values, and household attitude toward urban agriculture. Prior knowledge and values appear, therefore, to significantly shape the attitude of households in Malaysia.     

An application of the generalized Poisson difference distribution to the Bayesian modelling of football scores

The analysis of sports data, in particular football match outcomes, has always produced an immense interest among the statisticians. In this paper, we adopt the generalized Poisson difference distribution (GPDD) to model the goal difference of football matches. We discuss the advantages of the proposed model over the Poisson difference (PD) model, which was also used for the same purpose. The GPDD model, like the PD model, is based on the goal difference in each game that allows us to account for the correlation without explicitly modelling it. The main advantage of the GPDD model is its flexibility in the tails by considering shorter as well as longer tails than the PD distribution. We carry out the analysis in a Bayesian framework in order to incorporate external information, such as historical knowledge or data, through the prior distributions. We model both the mean and the variance of the goal difference and show that such a model performs considerably better than a model with a fixed variance. Finally, the proposed model is fitted to the 2012–2013 Italian Serie A football data, and various model diagnostics are carried out to evaluate the performance of the model.     

Structural Equation Modeling of Consumer Purchase Intention Toward Synthetic Functional Foods

Functional foods are gaining greater popularity around the world. They are not just a new category of food products marketed for their health benefits, but their competitive market has made consumers become more favorable toward firms that are involved in this industry. The public is increasingly concerned about health and food-related risks. They tend to make decisions on food consumption, food storage, and food preparation on a more ideal perspective based on health and safety. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the factors and intention of Malaysian consumers to purchase synthetic functional foods. Structural equation modeling is used to accomplish the objectives of this study with the feedback received from the 2,004 households who were interviewed through a structural questionnaire. The results show that the most influential factors influencing consumer purchasing intention toward synthetic functional foods are perceived benefits followed by attitude and subjective norms.     

Food Labels’ Impact Assessment on Consumer Purchasing Behavior in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to validate the impact of food labels among Malaysian consumers using an extended theory of planned behavior model (TPB). In doing so, the study assessed the direct and indirect effect of food labeling on consumer intention to purchase or otherwise the food products of interest. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 2,014 consumers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The results of structural equation modeling supported the adequacy of the proposed model. This study contributes to and extends the understanding of food labeling and purchasing behavior, identifying the rationales for purchasing of food products with labels that contains information such as halal logo, ingredients, and nutritive value.     

Global warming and economic externalities

Despite worldwide policy efforts such as the Kyoto Protocol, the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) remains a negative externality. Economic equilibrium paths in the presence of such an uncorrected externality are inefficient; as a consequence, there is no real economic opportunity cost to correcting this externality by mitigating global warming. Mitigation investment using resources diverted from conventional investments can raise the economic well-being of both current and future generations. The economic literature on GHG emissions misleadingly focuses attention on the intergenerational equity aspects of mitigation by using a hybrid constrained optimal path as the “business-as-usual” benchmark. We calibrate a simple Keynes-Ramsey growth model to illustrate the significant potential Pareto improvement from mitigation investment and to explain the equilibrium concept appropriate to modeling an uncorrected negative externality.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY WITH OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS

A two‐sector overlapping generations model illuminates the intergenerational effects of a tax that protects an environmental stock. A traded asset capitalizes the economic returns to future tax‐induced environmental improvements, benefiting the current asset owners, the old generation. Absent a transfer, the tax harms the young generation by decreasing their real wage. Future generations benefit from the tax‐induced improvement in environmental stock. The principal intergenerational conflict arising from the tax is between generations alive at the time society imposes the policy, not between generations alive at different times. A Pareto‐improving tax can be implemented under various political economy settings.     

Preference for Locally Grown or Imported Fruit Among the Millennial Generation in Johor,Malaysia

This study attempts to explore factors influencing the choice of locally grown or imported fruits among young Malaysians. It investigates how consumer preference, socioeconomics, and demographic profiles can affect their choice of which fruit category they pick. Five hundred respondents were interviewed by using a structured questionnaire to collect information related to their fruit preferences and choices. The millennium generation in Malaysia, especially the Malay living in Johor, were surveyed as a representation of future consumers of fruit and their subsequent choices and demand. Factor analysis was carried out on statements regarding consumer preferences on choices of local or imported fruit. Five factors were identified as the outstanding consumer preferences for fruits. Demographic profiles of the respondents such as family size, and dimension of fruit preferences, including country of origin, perceived quality, and environmental concerns, were important factors that affect consumers’ purchasing behavior in choosing locally grown or imported fruits. Logit regression indicated that family size, country of origin product quality, perceived quality, and variety of fruits will likely influence the preferences for fruit among the younger generation.     

Second-Best Renewable Subsidies to De-carbonize the Economy: Commitment and the Green Paradox

Climate change must deal with two market failures: global warming and learning by doing in renewable energy production. The first-best policy consists of an aggressive renewables subsidy in the near term and a gradually rising and falling carbon tax. Given that global carbon taxes remain elusive, policy makers might have to rely on a second-best subsidy only. With credible commitment the second-best subsidy is higher than the social benefit of learning to cut the transition time and peak warming close to first-best levels at the cost of higher fossil fuel use in the short run (weak Green Paradox). Without commitment the second-best subsidy is set to the social benefit of learning. It generates smaller weak Green Paradox effects, but the transition to the carbon-free takes longer and cumulative carbon emissions are higher. Under first best and second best with pre-commitment peak warming is 2.1–2.3 \(^{\circ }\)C, under second best without commitment 3.5 \(^{\circ }\)C, and without any policy 5.1 \(^{\circ }\)C above pre-industrial levels. Not being able to commit yields a welfare loss of 95% of initial GDP compared to first best. Being able to commit brings this figure down to 7%.     

Perceptions of Home Insurance and Policy Directions: Comparing Mexican Americans and Non-Hispanic White Americans

With prior research on home insurance largely focused on supply side practices, we know little about demand side attributes of this market, especially about consumer perceptions of insurance. This article demonstrates that, despite seemingly more equitable industry practices, ethnic homeowners (Mexican Americans in this study), relative to the majority White population, have a greater tendency to view home insurance as a cost burden (as opposed to coverage against potential damages and injuries) and, hence, are more vulnerable to living with minimal or no home insurance coverage. The findings suggest that this disparity is attributable to cultural differences rooted in diverse structural and institutional circumstances in which ethnic homeowners often find themselves situated. The role of ethnic identity is salient even after accounting for personal, household, property, mortgage, and natural calamity factors. New directions for policy are proposed to address the situation by informing and empowering vulnerable consumers.