The effect of ad appeals and message framing on consumer responses to plant-based menu items

While the recent surge of meat-like items on restaurant menus has received considerable attention, little is known how to encourage consumers to choose such novel dishes. To address this gap, we investigate the role of various communication strategies in making plant-based menu items more attractive. The results from Study 1 suggest that using a social appeal in the ad increases consumers’ preference for plant-based menu items via anticipated pleasure, but a health appeal does not. The results from Study 2 demonstrate that information on social costs induces feelings of ambivalence toward meat eating, thus making plant-based menu items more desirable. However, information on health risks of meat consumption does not have such an effect. Practical implications for promoting plant-based menu items are discussed.     

How anticipated pride and guilt influence green consumption in the Middle East: The moderating role of environmental consciousness

This research empirically tests the combined effect of anticipated pride, anticipated guilt, and environmental consciousness in parallel to the Theory of Planned Behavior's main components on green purchase intention. For the first time, it also explores the interaction of environmental consciousness, anticipated pride, anticipated guilt, and attitude, respectively, on green purchase intention. Analysis of 304 responses collected from consumers in the United Arab Emirates revealed that environmental consciousness, attitude towards green products, anticipated pride, and anticipated guilt positively influence the intention to purchase green products, but not perceived behavioral control and subjective norms. Interestingly, anticipated pride increases green purchase intention under low level of environmental consciousness, while anticipated guilt decreases purchase intention. In contrast, anticipated guilt positively influences green purchase intention under high environmental consciousness, while anticipated pride does not. This study extends current knowledge related to green purchase behavior and provides a nuanced understanding of the influence of anticipated emotions. It also provides practical implications for marketers in the Middle East to formulate effective strategies to stimulate green products consumption.     

多委托代理关系、政策的选择性执行与农村税费改革

农村税费改革在全国全面推行后,在目前的条件下这一政策出现的一些问题能否得到全面深入的贯彻执行的问题引起了学术界的关注.本文运用多委托代理理论来分析中国多层级垂直行政管理体系中的政策执行问题,认为地方基层政府利用政策存在无法执行的可能性以及信息传递中的噪音,从事违背税费改革精神的行为,地方政府出于自身的利益以及要求地方基层政府完成各种政策任务的考虑默许、袒护这一行为,并提出了全面贯彻执行农村税费改革政策所要采取的对策.     

长株潭城市群推进低碳城镇化的思考

在推进长株潭城市群的城镇化进程中,为了培育新的经济增长点和抢占战略制高点,转变传统的经济发展模式和突出发展低碳经济刻不容缓。通过对长株潭城市群推进低碳城镇化的可行性进行分析,针对性地提出了长株潭城市群发展低碳城镇化的对策,为实现"两型社会",推进新型城镇化建设提供参考。     

To Justify or Not to Justify: The Role of Anticipated Regret on Consumers’ Decisions to Upgrade Technological Innovations

Prior research suggests that adoption decisions are primarily based on product features and experiential opportunities, like trial and observation. Our research follows inquiries that identify anticipated regret (AR) as an emotion integral to consumer decision making. Prior research and current retailing practice assume that AR can be alleviated by compelling product attribute-based rationales for immediate purchase. These rationales often take the form of direct attribute comparisons between the current best and the future technologies. Counter-intuitively, we find that giving consumers attribute-based justifications for immediate purchase produces a uniform level of AR and purchase delay regardless of the perceived rate of innovation (PRI). However, under conditions of low PRI and no justification, AR decreases significantly. A clear implication of our findings is that firms marketing current technology should not rush to provide consumers with justifications for immediate upgrade since such communications will remind consumers of what they might miss if they adopt now, resulting in increased AR and purchase delays. Instead, we suggest that retailers focus promotional efforts on highlighting the hedonic benefits consumers experience by adopting today.     

Decision Utility and Anticipated Discrete Emotions: An Investment Decision Model

Integrating theories and findings from various disciplines, we develop a decision utility model to explain how anticipated discrete emotions mediate investment decisions. We illustrate the model with the anticipated discrete emotions of a hypothetical Ponzi scheme investor and suggest practical measures to manage financial risks, emotionally.     

Germany: ‘élite precaution’ alongside continued public opposition

Germany is the EU member state with the most difficult situation (besides Austria) for marketing genetically modified (GM) crops and food. At the same time, it shows the least administrative effort to respond to the reasons for this situation – public suspicion and protest. Regulators advocate specific precaution-related measures, including marketstage monitoring; these measures, however, do not relate to the primary demands of critics and opponents. The administration’s claim to prioritize scientific evidence over politics constructs the administration and the public as two separate worlds without real mediation. This conflicts with the ever-growing demands for public participation. Participation in a broader sense, however, is not dependent on formal opportunities. In this conflict, NGOs bring up issues of democracy, transparency and precaution through public mobilization. This strategy results in an anticipated consumer boycott and thereby a commercial blockage of GM products. These dynamics can be analysed as ‘reflexive modernization’, which implies greater public aversion to externally imposed risks. The politico-administrative system responds with a legalistic–scientistic approach in order to increase safety but without participatory measures to overcome predictive uncertainty and value conflicts. Environmental and consumer protest has led the technology providers to revise their political strategies in the biotechnology conflict. Thus, in Germany reflexive modernization takes place without reflexive politics.     

A working paper from April 1985: Which demand elasticities do we know and which do we need to know for policy analysis?

This paper presents some results on the theory and estimation of intertemporal allocation mechanisms. The results rely heavily on the distinction between anticipated changes and unanticipated changes.     

Anticipated foreign military threat, arms accumulation, and the current account in a small open economy

This paper examines the effects of an anticipated foreign military threat on consumption, the home weapons stock, and net foreign asset position in a small open economy. If the utility function is separable between butter and guns, the economy decreases both butter and guns when the news arrives, accumulates foreign assets prior to the foreign threat realization, and increases guns as the foreign threat realizes. If the utility function is nonseparable between butter and guns, the economy may have two dynamic responses. The first is similar to the separable case, except that consumption exhibits a discrete jump when the foreign threat realizes. The second is that the economy increases both butter and guns on impact, decumulates foreign assets prior to the foreign threat implementation, but either increases or decreases guns as the foreign threat realizes.     

On the closed-form solution of an endogenous growth model with anticipated consumption

This paper derives a closed-form solution of the AK endogenous growth model with logarithmic preferences and anticipated future consumption which enters additively into effective consumption. We get an explicit representation of the time paths of the economic variables in level by resorting to Gaussian Hypergeometric functions. We compare the model with anticipated future consumption to the model with habit formation. The maximum utility attainable in the model with anticipation is shown to be higher than the one attainable in the model with habits. Using the derived explicit expressions, we perform some comparative-dynamics and -statics analyses with respect to relevant parameters. Numerical simulations complement the theoretical results. Thus, this work provides further support to the usefulness of especial functions in the study of economic dynamics.