INFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON CONSUMER PURCHASING PATTERNS AND PREFERENCES FOR GROUND BEEF

A study of 198 household units in the Fort Collins, CO area was made to ascertain the importance of such factors as consumer age, income, education and marital status on the purchasing patterns for ground beef. Compared to younger consumers, older consumers tended to: (1) make more frequent purchases of ground beef; (2) buy less ground beef per purchase; and (3) select leaner ground beef. Households with gross incomes in excess of $25,000 tended to buy larger quantities of ground beef per purchase and bought leaner ground beef compared to households with less than $15,000 gross income. In making purchasing decisions, participants in the study considered leanness, visual appearance and price as the most important factors, while packaging and brand name were considered the least important factors.     

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MEAT PREFERENCES OF MALAWIANS

A questionnaire sent to 155 individuals was used to determine the meat preferences of families in three different socio-economic groups within the capital city of Malawi. Beef was the most strongly preferred meat, followed by chicken. When these two meats were unavailable differences between groups became apparent; high income families preferring pork and sheep, and low income families preferring goat, rabbit and ‘other’ meats. These results were influenced by the method of marketing of particular meats, but show that meat preferences of Malawians are different from those of individuals of Western European origin. Total meat production and consumption could be increased by an improvement in the production and marketing of goat meat; the second most popular species in farm holdings.     

THE LANGUAGE OF POSSESSIONS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSUMER STUDIES

In this paper the author considers the way in which consumers regard their possessions and how this can influence consumer behaviour. The need for change in consumer education and consumer protection is considered and the idea of consumer responsibility is proposed.     

CONSUMER PREFERENCES REGARDING COOKING METHODS AND TIMES FOR BEEF LOIN STEAKS IN CENTRAL ALBERTA

A total of 383 questionnaires were distributed to determine the cooking methods and times employed in central Alberta households for the preparation of beef loin steaks and to evaluate the influence of age of adult members in households on the cooking methods and times employed. Responses from 353 of these questionnaires indicated that a wide variety of cooking methods and times were normally employed for the preparation of beef loin steaks and that cooking methods and times employed varied with the age of adult household members. However, for laboratory taste panel acceptability tests to most closely simulate consumer evaluations by the majority of central Alberta households, beef loin steaks should be either broiled or pan-fried for approximately 15 min.     

COST OF COMPLAINING AND THE EFFICIENCY OF CONSUMER COMPLAINTS AGENCIES

In this paper an attempt is made to analyse the activity of complaining from an economic point of view and a model of consumer complaints is proposed as an aid in this analysis. The author discusses the implications of the analysis and assesses the efficiency and role of consumer complaints agencies.     

THE CONSUMER FOOD AND NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE OF PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS

Over 4000 prospective secondary and elementary teachers were tested in a national study to determine their knowledge of fourteen consumer subject areas. In the area of consumer food and nutrition knowledge the prospective teachers achieved only 48%. This area of consumer food and nutrition was found to be a critical weakness of prospective teachers relative to their performance in the other consumer subject areas. Prospective home economics and agriculture teachers scored higher than other majors on the food and nutrition questions but still revealed a poor cognitive grasp of the subject. Because of their impact on children's attitudes toward food and their eating patterns, prospective teachers need to be knowledgeable about food concepts. This study has implications for educators and college curriculum committees concerning the need for college level courses which deal with food and nutrition concepts.     

转轨时期中国家庭养老存在的问题与对策

文章指出 ,社会养老不能取代家庭养老。在社会转型时期 ,中国家庭养老保障制度遇到诸多困难并引发一系列家庭矛盾。文章提出 ,必须合理界定赡养人的范围、明确家庭养老的内容、成立专门的家庭养老管理机构、严惩不履行赡养义务者。     

作业成本法在企业产品定价中的应用

本文首先揭示传统成本核算方法对企业定价不适应性,引入作业成本法理论,分析了作业成本法理论的优势,继而提出作业成本核算模型及实施程序,并将这一模型应用于企业产品定价系统中,并对其适用条件进行了探讨。     

MEAN VARIANCE PREFERENCES, EXPECTATIONS FORMATION, AND THE DYNAMICS OF RANDOM ASSET PRICES

This paper analyzes the dynamics of an explicit random process of prices and price expectations of finitely many assets in an economy with overlapping generations of heterogeneous consumers. They maximize expected utility with respect to subjective transition probabilities defined by Markov kernels which describe the forecasting behavior of agents. Given such forecasting rules (predictors) and an exogenous process of dividends, the evolution of equilibrium asset prices and expectations is described by a random dynamical system in the sense of Arnold (1998) . The paper investigates the long-run behavior (stationary solutions) by proving the existence and stability of random fixed points for mean-variance preferences under various predictors, including unbiased predictions, and adaptive, as well as OLS forecasting. An explicit characterization of rational expectations solutions is given, providing a full dynamic characterization of asset price processes for the classical CAPM in the case of stationary OLG economies. Numerical simulations are used to compare the performance of the different predictors under an AR(1) dividend process.     

ESTIMATION OF VALUE AT RISK AND RUIN PROBABILITY FOR DIFFUSION PROCESSES WITH JUMPS

In this paper we give upper bounds for both the Value at Risk   VaR _α,  0 < α < 1  , and for ruin probabilities associated with the supremum of a process driven by a Brownian motion and a compound Poisson process. We obtain lower bounds for the same Value at Risk, and for different cases we discuss the behavior of the bounds for small α. We prove our bounds are asymptotically optimal, as α tends to zero. The ruin probabilities obtained are related to other bounds found in recent literature.     

CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEVEL OF SOIL REMOVAL AND ENERGY USE IN THE LAUNDERING PROCESS

A series of fabric swatches depicting various levels of soil removal were presented to consumers, with one-half of the subjects being given energy requirements to obtain each level of soil removal. A whiteness index of 50 was found to be the minimum acceptable level of soil removal. Information on resources required to obtain the various levels of soil removal did not change the minimum level of acceptance. Attitudes of consumers concerning ecological issues, obtained from a questionnaire, did not correlate with consumers' acceptance scores. There was some indication from the questionnaire data that consumers might be willing to make some trade-offs for monetary savings in place of maximum levels of soil removal. The level of acceptance of soil removal was most closely related to attitude toward cleanliness and neatness.     

加入WTO对东北地区粮食产业发展的影响及对策

加入WTO ,给我国很多产业带来跳跃性发展的机遇 ,但对粮食产业而言 ,挑战远远大于机遇 ;东北地区作为我国粮食生产的主产区和集散地 ,其今后的发展影响着东亚甚至世界粮食贸易格局的形成 ,也决定了能否为我国的粮食安全提供有效的保障。     

绩效考核失败的探析与对策

绩效考核是现代人力资源管理的重要功能之一 ,它对组织业绩形成与提升的重要影响已为越来越多的企业所重视 ,但许多企业在推进绩效考核的过程中效果并不理想 ,原因是多方面的。本文针对企业在推进绩效考核过程中存在的诸多问题 ,提出了绩效考核的对策。     

营销策划价值关联原理分析——基于市场生态价值系统和消费者需求要素

在相当长的一段时期内,中国市场环境和消费者需求将处于复杂、动态的变化之中。在变化的背后总是隐藏着许多不变的价值因素,这就是基于消费者需求的市场价值系统和企业生态价值系统。策划价值关联原理的本质就在于在变与不变中建立市场价值系统与消费者需求要素之间的关联。     

全球经济危机时期中国海外资产面临的新型征收风险——解析平安投资富通争议

一、发展海外直接投资对我国经济社会发展和国家安全具有不可替代的重要作用 海外直接投资是我国开放经济发展的重要内容,其对国民经济和社会可持续发展的重要性正与日俱增.早在革命战争年代,中共地下党创办的广大华行等公司就将业务开展到了美国等海外地区,不仅为我党我军提供了相当数额的经费,而且开辟了情报和军需来源.新中国成立之后,即使在先后遭受西方、东方集团封锁的复杂困难局面下,我国最高领导层也尽力在海外维持了力所能及的投资规模.     

DURABILITY CHOICE AND THE PIRACY FOR PROFIT OF GOODS

We explore the impact of durable goods piracy in a simple two‐period durability choice setting where an originator faces a future for‐profit pirate that clones or duplicates copies of the durable good. We find that a social planner, as well as a monopoly originator, may well engage in a sort of ‘reversed planned obsolescence’. In other words, they manufacture a product that is more durable than the first‐best cost‐minimizing level, if they cannot directly control the pirate. We show this occurs even in rental or committed sales settings, indicating Swan's market independence result does not hold here.