基于消费者行为理论的森林食品产业发展潜力分析

文章运用经济学的消费行为理论,从消费者对森林食品的偏好分析入手,分析了森林食品具有二元价值结构的特征,推出大多数的消费者对森林食品具有超满足性消费偏好的特性,其效用函数有非1正实根。在此基础上,结合我国森林食品产业发展的特征,导出森林食品产业的需求模型。以期为森林食品产业组织的完善及竞争力的提升提供市场需求的理论分析依据。     

Household food consumption in Turkey

This paper analyses Turkish household food consumption, usingdata from the 2003 Turkish Household Expenditure Survey. A completedemand system is estimated taking into account demographic differencesand zero consumption. The highest expenditure elasticity isfound for the meat and meat products group, suggesting thatits demand will grow faster than the demand for other productsas the economy develops and income increases. Demand is moreprice-responsive for fats and oils and non-alcoholic beveragesthan all other food products. Regional and seasonal differencesand socio-demographic factors are as important as the conventionaleconomic variables in explaining observed differences in thehousehold's food consumption patterns in Turkey.     

Brand Inertia in U.S. Household Cheese Consumption

To analyze U.S. consumers' brand choices for cheese purchases, we derive a set of discrete-choice models from dynamic utility maximization. ACNielsen Homescan Survey data on U.S. households is used to estimate a dynamic probit model for each of the top brands for cheddar, shredded, and sliced cheese in four U.S. regions. We find that households have strong brand inertia, a result robust across alternative specifications. Predicted probabilities confirm greater inertia in the top brands and consumers are more likely to switch into them. Brand inertia is relatively larger in cheddar and sliced cheese especially in the Central and Southeast regions.     

A Belief-Preference Model of Choice for Experience and Credence Goods

We develop a methodology addressing the issue of confounded beliefs and preferences in models of discrete choice. First, we formalise the theoretical framework and logical underpinnings of a belief-preference model of choice for experience and credence goods, where subjective beliefs relate to uncertain product quality. We then present the experimental procedure within the context of an online choice experiment studying consumer food preferences. The empirical strategy leverages information from a quality sorting task to identify and estimate beliefs, while choice data are used to recover preferences. By conditioning product choices on predicted quality perceptions, the issue of endogenous beliefs is resolved.     

Preference Heterogeneity and Habit Persistence: The Case of Breakfast Cereal Consumption

The efficiency of information, price campaigns and economic incentive policies related to food depend on the degree of habit persistence in food consumption. This paper estimates the strength of state dependence associated with breakfast cereal consumption and its heterogeneity across households, where positive state dependence implies habit persistence and negative state dependence implies variety seeking in consumption. The analysis uses a detailed micro‐level dataset from the research institute GfK Sweden on household breakfast cereal consumption in 2003. The analysis relies on a mixed multinomial logit model and finds breakfast cereal consumption is generally highly habitual. The degree of habit persistence, however, exhibits heterogeneity across households. In addition, some households can be characterised as variety seeking. The strength of habit persistence is similar across income and educational groups. The strength of habit persistence seems to be weaker for households with several adults and children compared with one‐adult households.     

Measurement Error in Recall Surveys and the Relationship between Household Size and Food Demand

Variation in household survey design and implementation is used to obtain evidence of nonrandom measurement error in recall surveys of household expenditure. These surveys, which are used especially in developing countries, appear to have measurement errors in food expenditures and in food budget shares that are correlated with household size. These correlated errors may be part of the explanation for a puzzling pattern of falling food demand with rising household size in poorer countries.     

A Comparative Study of U.S. and Japanese Meat Consumption Using Age-Period-Cohort Decomposition

Household life cycle has been widely used as a determinant of consumer behavior and a basis for market segmentation. Repeated cross-section data on the meat share in household consumption in the United States and Japan, classified by age and period, are decomposed into age, period, and birth cohort effects. Empirical evidence suggests the following: (a) the cohort effect is the largest in the United States, whereas the age effect is the largest in Japan; (b) the U.S. age effect increases for the age group 15–34, whereas the Japanese age effect decreases for the age group 25–34; (c) the Japanese period effect reveals a clear downward trend; and (d) the U.S. cohort effect decreases for the birth cohort 1900–1949. Furthermore, implications for meat producers and sellers are provided.     

The Theory and Econometrics of Health Information in Cross-Sectional Nutrient Demand Analysis

Understanding the role of health information in food and nutrient demand has become an important issue over the last decade. Endogeneity and measurement error are two empirical problems that are inherent in this type of analysis. While some type of instrumental variables estimation would appear the obvious solution, this article provides several theoretical and empirical reasons why this is not the case in cross-sectional analysis. An alternative estimation strategy is pursued, an empirical example is given, and the implications are discussed.     

Have health claims affected demand for fats and meats in Canada?

Chronic illness is a global epidemic and places significant economic and social burdens on societies. Research has shown that a healthy diet can be used to mitigate or significantly reduce the risk of many chronic illnesses. Health authorities around the world have begun regulating health claims on foods to encourage the consumption of healthy foods. However, the “ex post” efficacy of health claims regulations on consumers demand for healthy foods has not been assessed. The demand for fats and meats in Canada is estimated using a linear-approximate almost ideal demand system. The results indicate health claims decreased unhealthy food demand between 1.41% and 7.10% and increased healthy food demand between 1.95% and 8.50%.     

The welfare costs of urban outdoor water restrictions

Outdoor water restrictions are usually implemented as bans on a particular type of watering technology (sprinklers), which allow households to substitute for labour-intensive (hand-held) watering. This paper presents a household production model approach to analysing the impact of sprinkler restrictions on consumer welfare and their efficacy as a demand management tool. Central to our empirical analysis is an experimentally derived production function which describes the relationship between irrigation and lawn quality. We demonstrate that for a typical consumer complete sprinkler bans may be little more effective than milder restrictions policies, but are substantially more costly to the household.     

Who Pays More for Food?

Building on research with unit values, we demonstrate how a household's per serving and total vegetable expenditures depend on both the characteristics of the household and on its location. The lower a household's income, for example, the lower is vegetable spending, all else constant. However, households living in communities with high real estate prices, or with a high incidence of poverty, among other things, tend to pay more. Simulations further illustrate the effect that a community's characteristics can have on a household's vegetable spending, if the household lives in each of 10 cities in the United States.     

Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Patterns: A Segmentation Approach

In this article, we study the heterogeneity of fruit and vegetable consumption patterns in France. A finite mixture of AIDS models is used to describe food demand patterns revealing different preferences over distinct classes. We obtained six different clusters, which reflect specific socio-demographic characteristics and different income and price elasticities. This approach is appropriate for targeting specific public nutritional policies. Our main results show that unlike the other clusters in which the usual price and income policy tools may be used, the lowest income cluster with the lowest consumption, remains insensitive to economic variables.     

The Impact of Social Norms on Suboptimal Food Consumption: A Solution for Food Waste

Abstract

Consumers seem to have a reduced preference to buy fruits and vegetables with unusual appearance, products with damaged package and close to the expiration date, usually called suboptimal food products. However, this pattern of behavior is an important contributor to food waste levels. Interventions aimed at encouraging the purchase of suboptimal food are scarce, however, needed. Across two studies, we investigated the effect of social norms in driving suboptimal food consumption. Additionally, it was tested if food waste problem awareness is the underlying mechanism in the relationship between social norms and intention to buy suboptimal food. Results show that appeals employing social norms positively affect purchases intentions toward the products. Moreover, food waste problem awareness mediates the effect of social norms on intentions to purchase the product with an unusual appearance. We discuss how social norms can be used to tackle food waste and implications for marketing and policy actions.     

The Effects of Housing Prices, Wages, and Commuting Time on Joint Residential and Job Location Choices

An empirical model of joint decisions of where to live and where to work demonstrates that individuals make residential and job location choices by trading off wages, housing prices, and commuting costs. Wages are higher in metropolitan markets, but housing prices are also higher in urban areas. Consumers can live in lower priced nonmetropolitan houses and still earn urban wages, but they incur commuting costs that increase with distance from the city. Improvements in transportation that lower commuting time will increase nonmetropolitan populations and will increase the number of nonmetropolitan commuters to metropolitan markets. Equal wage growth across labor markets causes a shift in relative population from rural to urban markets, while an equiproportional increase in housing prices causes a population shift toward rural areas.     

Nutrient effects in consumer demand systems: evidence from panel data

This papers aims to analyse the demand for main food groups in Spain. Apart from the traditional economic factors (prices and income), our theoretical framework incorporates the nutrient composition of food into a demand model in the form of food attributes, as a proxy to take into account the rising consumer concern about the relationship between diet and health. A CBS functional form is chosen for the empirical model, which is estimated using a complete panel data set. Ten broad categories, nine nutrients and the most relevant socio-economic variables have been considered. Finally, after employing an appropriate selection strategy, the chosen model is used to calculate expenditure, price and nutrient elasticities, as well as the main socio-demographic effects. Results indicate that the introduction of nutrient-based determinants generates elasticities that differ from those obtained when only economic factors are included, particularly in the case of price elasticities. As the nutrients effect is incorporated in the model through adjusted prices, unhealthier food groups (cereals, white meat and eggs, dairy and sugar) become more inelastic as they are associated with higher perceived prices.     

Changing food consumption patterns in rural and urban Vietnam: Implications for a future food supply system

Rapid income growth and urbanisation could significantly change the composition of the food basket in many emerging economies. This study estimates a demand system, including 15 major food items in Vietnam, with multiyear household survey data. We find a large variation in the estimated price elasticities (–0.05 to –0.88) and expenditure elasticities (–0.16 to 2.56). Food types, urban status and income groups can explain this variation. We also find that the staple food, rice, is already an inferior good for rich urban households in Vietnam. Moreover, food preferences are evolving away from rice but towards animal proteins (fish, pork, chicken, eggs and milk), fruits and vegetables, irrespective of urban status and income groups. As the Vietnam economy continues to grow with a doubling of gross domestic product (GDP) in the next decade, per capita rice consumption in both urban and rural areas and across different income groups will continue to decline, whereas demand for other high‐value products will rise. Thus, government policy should focus on encouraging demand‐oriented food production. In addition, crop diversification at the farm level needs to improve substantially to meet the rising demand for these food products due to income growth and urbanisation.     

What If You Stop and Think About It? Nutrition Logos and Product Selection Behavior

This study explores the effect of a health involvement manipulation on food choices and how food choices are influenced by front-of-pack nutrition labels. The results show that without health involvement, choice was significantly affected by both nutrition labels and product type, but the product choice with health involvement was affected only by whether the product was selected as the healthier one in the involvement manipulation stage. Moreover, selection of the healthiest product during the manipulation stage was affected by the product type but not the front-of-pack (FOP) labels, potentially because participants relied on their own knowledge or the product perception to assess the healthiness of the product rather than the label information. The implication is that consumers seem to behave differently when pushed into a “choose healthy” state of mind, and their reliance on label information to assess product healthiness may be product and context dependent.     

Economics of household food waste

Food waste has drawn increasing public attention, and the high levels of estimated waste are largely considered to be a failure of our current food system. Recently, economists have begun to weigh in, showing food waste can emerge as the result of a complex equilibrium affected by consumers’ preferences for convenience; expectations about future food prices and availability; food safety concerns; producers’ costs of holding inventory, transportation, and storage; government regulation; and technology. If food waste is a form of inefficiency, there are either strong economic motivations to reduce waste, or unmeasured costs or preferences affecting waste decisions. If consumers have behavioral biases, suffer from information asymmetries, or do not pay the full cost of their waste, there may be a role for government intervention to reduce waste, but most empirical models in the literature have not articulated or quantified the extent of the deadweight loss from the market failures in relation to food waste. In some cases, waste reduction efforts could harm producers if overall demand for food is reduced or harm consumers if overconsumption is encouraged, quality or safety degrades, or supply disruptions occur. Technological innovations, which lower the cost of storage or extend shelf life have the potential to improve both consumer and producer welfare.     

Promotion and Fast Food Demand

Many believe that fast food promotion is a significant cause of the obesity epidemic in North America. Industry members argue that promotion only reallocates brand shares and does not increase overall demand. We study the effect of fast food promotion on market share and total demand by estimating a discrete / continuous model of fast food restaurant choice and food expenditure that explicitly accounts for both spatial and temporal determinants of demand. Estimates are obtained using a unique panel of Canadian fast food consumers. The results show that promotion primarily increases demand and has a smaller effect on restaurant market shares.