Why households buy bottled water: a survey of household perceptions in the Philippines

This study investigates the determinants of household buying decisions to purchase bottled water or purified water from refilling stations among households in Metro Cebu, Philippines. A survey of 360 households was conducted to obtain data on household sources of drinking water, household bottled water buying behaviour and perceptions of water quality. A binary probit model was used to examine the effects of socio‐economic and perception‐based variables on the likelihood that a household regularly bought bottled or purified water. Results show that households that perceived their primary source of water, whether from the tap or from other sources, to be unsafe were more likely to buy bottled or purified water. Education of household heads, the presence of children ages 0–5 years, household size and price were also found to have significant effects. Income, however, was not found to have influenced the decision to buy. Having piped access to the local water district and knowledge of government assurances about water safety were also not found to have a significant impact.     

Determinants of environmentally responsible behaviours for greenhouse gas reduction

Canadian household consumption and driving behaviours are responsible for a significant portion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced across Canada. This paper examines and characterizes two sets of consumer behaviours, indoor GHG reduction behaviours and automobile GHG emissions, using data from a 2006 telephone survey of a representative random sample of 1002 Canadian households with cars. Two statistical models are used to analyse the impact of four groups of variables (environmental attitudes, policy opinions, automobile‐related indices and socio‐demographics) on GHG reduction at the household level. Results were obtained using ordered probit and Ordinary Least Squares regressions. Indoor GHG reduction behaviours were not correlated with automobile GHG emissions. Dominant factors increasing consumer GHG reduction behaviours both indoors and on the road were sense of personal responsibility and previous environmental activism. Canadians who least actively participate in GHG reduction activities were more likely to be living in the Prairie provinces and to be male.     

Consumer Preferences and Customer Satisfaction Analysis: A New Method Proposal

The organic food market is currently the fastest growing food sector in the United States, with growth rates in organic food sales averaging 17% per year between 1998 and 2006. The largest segment within the organic market is fresh produce, comprising 34% percent of retail sales in 2006. This analysis focuses on identifying the demographic characteristics of households buying organic vegetables (in total) along with prepackaged organic salads and organic carrots, by examining the factors that influence the probability that a consumer will buy organic vegetables, and which factors influence the household share of organic vegetables purchased. We use Nielsen Homescan data for the year 2004. Households with high levels of education are more likely to purchase organic vegetables, while the probability of purchasing organic vegetables is lower for African Americans and for older households.     

Analysis of tenure choice and housing expenditure patterns

This study employs a selectivity model to account for the simultaneity existing between determinations of tenure status and level of spending. Important socio-economic characteristics affecting housing tenure were identified. Results indicate that income had a more important effect on the housing expenditures of renters than owners at a lower household income level. The race of the household head had a significant effect on variations in housing expenditures for owners but not for renters, suggesting that race may be a more important factor in owner-occupant than in renter-occupant housing. While household size may be an important factor in a family's decision-making in terms of buying a home, it is suggested that once tenure status is selected family size had no significant impacts on housing expenditures. Similarly, married couples were most likely to own their own homes than were other household types; however, married households did not spend more or less than other types of households on either owned or rented accommodation. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that in assessing empirical results, attention should be given to meaningful interpretation of estimated selectivity effects as well as to testing for occurrence of selectivity bias.     

Choices and using of washing machines in Chinese households

Rapid urbanization and improvement in living standard skyrocket the demand for washing machines in Chinese households, especially in urban households. This paper discusses the owning rate of different types of washing machines, using frequency, load capacity, factors affect choices of washing machines, etc. in Chinese households and suggest possible strategies in choosing washing machines considering economic expenditure. Quantitative information relates to choice and use of household washing machines was collected through in‐depth interview of the key person who carried out household laundering. A total of 993 households that were randomly selected in eight provinces and a municipality were successfully interviewed. Impeller washing machine is still in a dominate place whereas drum washing machine increasing steadily. Households with higher income tend to buy drum washing machines for their better performances in detergency and superior quality. Load capacity between 4 and 6 kg is very common at present. Larger load capacity is a trend of washing machine choices in Chinese households. Washing machine with better energy efficiency is more popular for its lower expenditure in use. This is more obvious for drum washing machine. Washing machines are often used once every 1 or 2 days in summer, whereas one wash per week and two washes per week are very common in winter. Consumer will expend much more money with the choice of a drum washing machine, not only for paying for the machine, but also for the consumed electricity and water and wastewater discharges in every use.     

Electricity saving behavior of households by making efforts,replacing appliances,and renovations: empirical analysis using a multivariate ordered probit model

This study empirically explores the determinants of household electricity saving behavior based on a sample of Japanese households. Our study makes four contributions. First, we examine the short‐term saving action of making efforts, the medium‐term saving action of replacing appliances, and the long‐term saving action of undertaking renovations. Second, we consider not only the physical characteristics of households but also behavioral characteristics, such as their understanding of the importance of energy saving and willingness to save energy. Third, in our analysis, we assume that appliances and housing facilities have the electricity‐saving capability and service‐providing capability. While previous studies focus on the former, consumers in reality consider both capabilities. Fourth, we consider the optimization by households and include broad types of appliances and renovations. Using a multivariate ordered probit model with data on 518 Japanese households in 2012, we obtain the following results. First, in addition to the demand response, the effort level is determined by behavioral, rather than by physical characteristics. Second, the motivation behind appliance replacement is durability, rather than electricity‐saving and service‐providing capabilities. Third, appliance replacement is enhanced by an understanding of the importance of energy saving, rather than by the willingness to save energy. Households can replace appliances because of social pressure, even if they are not so concerned about saving energy. Fourth, households are willing to renovate housing facilities even though they pay a higher cost for the greater saving capability rather than for the service‐providing capability. However, such renovation is not influenced by internal incentives, but by physical aspects of the house, such as size, age, and type.     

Factors affecting households’ seafood purchasing decisions in Auckland,New Zealand: an empirical analysis

This paper uses the binary choice model to identify the factors that are significantly influencing the household purchase decisions of seafood products for home consumption in Auckland, New Zealand. It is found that ‘quality’ and ‘cooking easiness’ are the main product attributes that significantly influence households’ choices of seafood in Auckland. Also, the representative household has shown a strong preference for fresh and other alternative seafood products, including processed, smoked and canned, over frozen products. Retail outlets are found to be more attractive to the household purchasing seafood for home consumption. The New Zealand seafood industry may find this baseline study useful as a guide to developing future research structure on the domestic market.     

Satisfaction with current commuting expense as related to the relative fuel efficiency of a desired car purchase

Although projecting the demand for cars in North America has been the subject of research for almost half a century,^1–6 increases in the price of petroleum and petroleum products during the 1970s prompted an interest in projecting the demand for fuel-efficient cars. The purpose of this paper is to assess factors affecting the relative fuel efficiency of a desired car purchase among households with at least one individual employed outside the home. In addition to socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the household, sex of the worker, distance to work and satisfaction with the expense involved in the journey to work are used to predict relative efficiency of a potential car purchase. The analysis is not intended to follow the lines of a traditional economic analysis. Rather, its purpose is to add other dimensions to such analyses.     

A green experience with eco-friendly cars: A young consumer electric vehicle rental behavioral model

Considering climate change and global warming, a transition from gasoline cars to electric vehicles (EVs) can progress toward reducing the carbon footprint and improving air quality. As young consumers prepare to become future automobile users, this research focuses on their EV perception, attitude, and cost considerations in a car-rental setting. Consumer confidence and affordability are the main barriers to the widespread adoption of EVs. Consumers remain skeptical about the functional and service quality of these new eco-friendly vehicles. The use of rental EVs can help consumers deal with these barriers because the stakes are relatively lower in a car-rental decision as compared to a vehicle purchase. Therefore, this study investigates the role of environmental protection attitude, subjective norms, perceived functional quality, post-rental service quality, price value, and willingness-to-pay regarding consumers rental intentions for EVs. Based on 502 survey respondents, this study tests the hypotheses using a covariance-based structural equation model. The results show that young consumers who are conscious of their environmental responsibilities, social norms, and quality are likely to rent an EV. The result also shows that price value does not directly impact the rental intention of young consumers, but rather indirectly through the mediating effect of willingness to pay. This finding is likely attributable to the fact that for this segment of the consumers, their household income determines their perceived price value and propensity to spend on eco-friendly vehicles.     

What Drives Household Choice of Organic Products in Grocery Stores?

This paper studies how households choose organic products on a given store visit. We develop a three-stage purchase incidence/brand choice/purchase quantity model for organic products. Shared random effects parameters link the three stages of the model. We empirically quantify the effects of category variables, marketing mix, and demographic variables on the purchase of organic products using a unique household panel dataset that includes actual organic purchase data from two markets, by over 4,500 households in 25 stores for the period between January 2004 and June 2009. First, we find that the purchase of organic products is greater among the high income, college educated, and older families as well as among consumers holding high-level occupations. Second, households tend not to purchase organic products when buying in concentrated categories. Third, on average, households tend to buy organic store brands more than the organic national brands. Promotions of organic brands (feature ad and display) are less likely to drive households to buy organic brands and so does the organic brand's distribution breadth. Finally, price has an inverted U-shaped effect. We discuss the implications of these results for retailers, manufacturers and researchers.     

The demand for small cars in the United States: Implications for energy conservation strategies

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the impact of household characteristics and preferences for Japanese cars on the demand for small cars in the United States. Two stage probit analysis was used to examine the impact of various explanatory variables on the purchase decision. The results indicated that preferences for Japanese cars, income, price and several household characteristics had a significant impact on the probability of purchasing a small car. The results of this study provide support for freer trade in automobiles and higher gasoline taxes as energy conservation strategies.

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Zusammenfassung Die Nachfrage nach Kleinwagen in USA: Implikationen für Strategien zur Energieeinsparung. Diese Untersuchung wollte herausfinden, wie sich Haushaltseigenschaften und Präferenzen für japanische Autos auf die Nachfrage nach Kleinwagen in den Vereinigten Staaten auswirken. Die Stichprobe umfa\te 367 Haushalte, die im Jahr 1986 ein neues Auto kauften. Davon kauften 141 Haushalte amerikanische Kleinwagen, 84 japanische Kleinwagen und 142 Haushalte kauften gro\e amerikanische Wagen. Eine zweistufige Probit-Analyse prüfte den Einflu\ der verschiedenen Erklärungsvariablen auf die Kaufentscheidung. Die Ergebnisse besagen im wesentlichen, da\ es die Präferenzen für japanische Autos, das Einkommen, der Preis und einige Haushaltseigenschaften sind, die einen signifikanten Einflu\ auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit eines Kleinwagenkaufs haben. Die Autoren sehen in den Ergebnissen eine Unterstützung für die Forderung nach Freihandel im Automobilsektor und nach höherer Besteuerung von Kraftstoffen als Strategien zur Energieeinsparung.

     

Bankrupt Households and Economic Crisis. Evidence from the Greek Courts

This paper investigates the profile of the Greek bankrupt households and is the first to deal with the bankrupt households in Greece utilizing court data from the judicial decisions according to the newly established personal Bankruptcy Law 3869/2010. We compare the characteristics of the bankrupt households drawn from the court data with those of a control group of households without financial difficulties constructed from the EU-SILC database. Our findings indicate that income and/or job loss, family breakup, and women with children are important characteristics related to bankruptcy. We also find that although the median of the household disposable income of the bankrupt households is lower than that of the households without financial difficulties, the former do not fall below the poverty line at a greater rate than the latter, in all household size instances. This finding is in line with the results of earlier studies indicating that bankruptcy is not a poor household’s issue. The results are confirmed using logistic regression relating the probability of bankruptcy to a set of socioeconomic measures.     

Expenditure patterns on food and non food items of Khayelitsha households,Western Cape,South Africa

Food insecurity or lack of access to adequate and nutritious food is a major determinant of under‐nutrition. Expenditure patterns accompanied by unemployment, low level of education, inflation and high food prices have a direct negative impact on food availability within households (Moller, 1997). Ghany and Schwenk (1993) found that as household income increases, the proportion of expenditures on food decreases, the proportion of expenditures on clothing, rent, fuel, and light stayed the same and that of sundries increased. The aim of this study was to investigate household expenditure patterns on food and non‐food items in Khayelitsha. A total of 20 households (10 from the formal and 10 from the informal settlements) were randomly selected from those willing to participate in the study. A questionnaire with open ended and closed questions was used to collect data. The questionnaire comprised four sections namely: biographical information, socio‐economic information which used wealth quintiles to assess households’ social economic status, total expenditure information and a food/hunger scale was used to assess households’ food availability. The findings revealed that households from informal settlements spent more money (62.2%) as a proportion of their income on food compared to households from the formal settlement (39%). There was higher unemployment rate (100%) at the informal settlement compared to the formal settlement (40%). Wealth quintiles scales did not reflect the social status of the households as equipment and assets owned by households were only used as fallback position during times of economic hardships. Households used different purchasing strategies; food and non‐food items were mainly purchased from outside the township (60%). Forty percent of the households bought their items from local shops and spazas because they allowed them to buy items whenever little money was available or to take items on credit. All the respondents preferred to buy bread and small items from spazas and local shops. Prices of items in the spazas and local shops were higher compared to prices of items in bigger shops outside the townships. The food/hunger scale and wealth quintiles showed that informal settlement households were more food insecure (as they were all unemployed and about 50% of the households ran out of food always) and had fewer assets compared to the formal settlement households. The implications of these findings underscore the need to improve socio‐economic conditions of low resource households through empowerment programs. These programs can be in the form of training in management/decision making, work related skills/literacy (to help them access formal employment), business management/income generation skills (to help them to be self‐employed), budgeting, and food gardening. This approach can help to increase the resource base and alleviate food insecurity in low resource households.     

Money management practices influencing household asset ownership

The purpose of this research is to describe the types and amounts of assets owned by households, and to determine socio-demographic variables and money management practices that influence the household's total asset ownership. The data used for this study are from a survey conducted during the winter of 1982. Definite patterns of financial asset ownership emerged. A majority, 70% or more, of the households owned current and savings accounts, and cars and real estate. A minority, 30% or less, owned certificates of deposit, mutual funds, stocks, bonds and individual retirement accounts. Age, net income and housing tenure were significant socio-demographic variables in explaining variation in total asset ownership among households. Only two money management practices, i.e. number of credit cards owned and the amount the manager felt comfortable charging on these cards, were significant in explaining variations in the amount of total assets owned by a household.     

New Dimensions of Financial Liberalization in Japan

This article contrasts the development of Japanese financial institutions over the past 50 years to that of the United States and compares the two countries’ household savings behavior. Although reform and liberalization is driving the Japanese financial sector to become more open and more sophisticated, there are powerful reasons for the Japanese system and Japanese asset-holding behavior to remain divergent from that of the United States. One major factor is that income and wealth in Japan are distributed much more evenly than in the United States. Since wealthy households are more sophisticated and better able to accommodate risk, the concentration of wealth in the United States means that, compared to Japan, there are more high income/high wealth households that are willing to take on risk from equity and bond holdings. In Japan, in contrast, there is a much heavier reliance on bank deposits. Even though financial institutions in the two countries are becoming more similar, the persistent differences in income distribution are likely to lead to persistent differences in asset holding and the composition of capital markets in the two countries. JEL Classification G2, O53     

The Use of Telephone Directories as a Sample Frame: Patterns of Bias Revisited

A study was undertaken to reassess the utility of using telephone directories as a sample frame. A survey research unit within the Genesee County Health Department of Flint, Michigan, randomly sampled 1,031 households from the city of Flint using a complete listing of dwellings within the city as a universe. In addition to the normal interview schedule used, households were given a supplemental questionnaire on telephone service. The adult household respondent was asked if the household had a telephone and, if not, why. If the household had a telephone the respondent was asked if the number was listed in a phone directory or not. If the phone was unlisted, the respondent was asked why. The results were quite similar to those found by past research. There were a number of statistically dependent relationships found between whether or not households had listed or unlisted phones and various characteristics of household heads as well as other household features. It is concluded that using a telephone directory as a sample frame may lead to a significant sampling bias. Telephone sampling can still be a useful marketing tool if random digit dialing is used. This latter suggestion is briefly discussed.     

Out‐of‐Pocket Health Care Expenditure Patterns and Financial Burden across the Life Cycle Stages

This study examines out‐of‐pocket health care expenditure patterns of households and the financial burden of health care costs over the stages of the household life cycle, using the 1995 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The elderly households not only spend more for health care, but they also experience higher financial burdens than other households. Insurance status, liquid assets, life cycle stage, household size, education, and self‐employment status are significant factors affecting the household budge share of health care expenses.     

Household production time by sex and employment status: a cross-national comparison between Finland and the U.S.A.

Two time-budget studies, from Finland and the U.S.A., were examined across nations and across sexes with regard to household production time in two parent, two-child households. Time-use difference in various household activity categories (basic housework, child- and member-care, maintenance, and shopping and management) were analysed according to respondents' employment status. Three-way analysis of variance revealed that all three variables, nationality, sex and employment status made a significant difference in the time-use mean scores. Part-time employed Finnish men allocated more time to household production than other Finnish men. The equality ratios confirmed that women in both countries carry the heaviest burden in the house-hold work, especially in traditionally female basic housework tasks. In Finnish households the equality ratios were consistently smaller than in the U.S. households indicating a more egalitarian division of household work. Implications for future cross-national time-use research including gender issues are discussed.     

Withholding Consumption: A Free Riding Perspective on the Diffusion of Color Television in Rural China

This paper documents the existence of a type of local spillovers—free riding among neighbors—in the diffusion of color television sets (CTVs) in rural China. Consistent with the free-riding hypothesis, we find that households with no TV (non-BWTV [black and white television set] households) are less likely to buy their first CTV in villages where a higher fraction of households already own BWTVs. Consistent with the free-riding hypothesis, we further find that this negative relationship is more pronounced for those non-BWTV households with lower income, facing lower BWTV ownership rates, and living closer to their neighbors.     

Cherchez la Femme? Differential Validity in Models of Risky Household Financial Behavior

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the choice of household informant for psychological variables included in models of risky household financial behavior matters to the empirical researcher. Five research hypotheses are posited in relation to this purpose, which concentrate on evaluating results from different correlation and regression analyses based on behavior measured at the household level, but with psychological data drawn from either the family financial officer (FFO) or the spouse in family households (N = 807). A sample of one-person households from the same database was used as control group (N = 211).It could not be shown directly that the amount of explained variance differed significantly between multiple regression analyses, in which the psychological data were drawn from different informants. However, other tests and analyses strongly indicate that including FFO data increased the validity of the model, while the inclusion of spouse data gave a marginally positive, albeit statistically significant, effect. The interpretation of the model also differs when different informants' data are used. One-person household data used to estimate an identical model seemed to produce a better fit than family household data. Finally, measures of "couple" variables showed stronger agreement between spouses than "individual" variables. Zero-order correlations between psychological variables and measures of risky financial behavior differed significantly between spouses in a few cases.The implication is that in this behavioral domain, psychological data must be collected from the family financial officer, while the spouse can be excluded without any severe consequences. This will also reduce the need to eliminate households from the analysis because of partial non-response.