The role of ethics and product personality in the intention to purchase organic food products: a structural equation modeling approach

The aim of the present study is to examine the role of ethical dimensions and product personality in the purchasing intention of organic food products. The Prospect method (Caprara et al. in Test Psicomet Metodol 7(3–4):113–128, 2000), which integrates the Five factors model of personality (cf. Digman in Annu Rev Psychol 41(1):417–440, 1990) and the Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen in Organ Behav Hum Decis Process, 50(2):179–211, 1991) extended to an ethical dimension, was employed, by using a Structural Equation Modeling approach. Results showed that moral norms—i.e., personal beliefs regarding what is right or wrong (Parker et al. in Br J Soc Psychol, 34(2):127–137, 1995)—can be considered the main motivator of purchasing intention, and they are, in turn, affected by subjective norms and product personality traits of Naturalness and Authenticity. Marketing implications for firms operating in the organic food industry are discussed, in their intent to shift from a “niche” market to a broader diffusion of these products.     

Food security implications of global marine catch losses due to overfishing

Excess fishing capacity and the growth in global demand for fishery products have made overfishing ubiquitous in the world’s oceans. Here we describe the potential catch losses due to unsustainable fishing in all countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and on the high seas over 1950–2004. To do so, we relied upon catch and price statistics from the Sea Around Us Project as well as an empirical relationship we derived from species stock assessments by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2000 alone, estimated global catch losses amounted to 7–36% of the actual tonnage landed that year, resulting in a landed value loss of between 6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US). From 1950–2004, 36–53% of commercial species in 55–66% of EEZs may have been overfished. Referring to a species-level database of intrinsic vulnerability (V) based on life-history traits, it appears that susceptible species were depleted quickly and serially, with the average V of potential catch losses declining at a similar rate to that of actual landings. The three continental regions to incur greatest losses by mass were Europe, North America, and Asia—forming a geographic progression in time. But low-income and small island nations, heavily dependent on marine resources for protein, were impacted most profoundly. Our analysis shows that without the inexorable march of overfishing, ~20 million people worldwide could have averted undernourishment in 2000. For the same year, total catch in the waters of low-income food deficit nations might have been up to 17% greater than the tonnage actually landed there. The situation may be worst for Africa, which in our analysis registered losses of about 9–49% of its actual catches by mass in year 2000, thus seriously threatening progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals.     

Hold-up and externality: the firm as a nexus of incomplete rights?

The Coasean theory of the firm (Coase in Economica 4:386–405, 1937) has flourished with the theory of incomplete contracts. Transaction costs in the form of enforcement costs have been deemed to be the main determinants of the decision to ‘make’ versus ‘buy’. Surprisingly, this stream of literature has almost neglected that transaction costs may also generate incomplete property rights (Coase in J Law Econ 3:1–44, 1960). As firm’s activities entail both contractual and property rights, these two domains interfere each other on the decision to carry out a transaction within the firm. When property rights are incomplete, potential externalities may increase the cost of using the price mechanism to procure the assets needed in a given transaction. The resulting ‘Coasean firm’ would not only centralize incomplete contracts under a unified governance system, but it will also aggregate incomplete property rights under a unified ownership structure.     

Endogenous timing in a mixed oligopoly with semipublic firms

An endogenous order of moves is analyzed in a mixed market where a firm jointly owned by the public sector and private domestic shareholders (a semipublic firm) competes with n private firms. We show that there is an equilibrium in which firms take production decisions simultaneously. This result is strikingly different from that obtained by Pal (Econ Lett 61:181–185, 1998), who shows that when a public firm competes with n private firms all firms producing simultaneously in the same period cannot be sustained as a Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium outcome. Our result differs from that of Pal (Econ Lett 61:181–185, 1998) for two reasons: firstly, we consider that there is a semipublic firm rather than a public firm. Secondly, Pal (Econ Lett 61:181–185, 1998) considers that the public firm is less efficient than private firms while in our paper all firms are equally efficient.     

制度变迁中土地产权的性质与合约选择:一个有关合作经济的案例分析

This paper discusses an evolutionary process of rural collective property rights or agricultural cooperation economy in detail. We convince that both the evolution of the household contract system and the rural cooperation economy in the market elaborate the key position of property rights’ multi-attribute in the formation of contract structure and organization shape. If there were strong externality between several elements of household, the collective property rights should be chosen. __________ Translated from Guanli Shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2008, (6): 61–67, 94     

Agreeing on generalised Darwinism: a response to Pavel Pelikan

Pelikan (J Evol Econ 21:341–366, 2011) develops an interesting conceptual framework that adds to prior work on generalised Darwinism. Despite claims to the contrary we show that it is similar to the approach developed by Hodgson and Knudsen (J Evol Econ 16(4):343–366, 2006a, J Econ Behav Organ 75(1):12–24, 2010a, b), Aldrich et al. (J Evol Econ 18(5):577–596, 2008) and others. Pelikan also mischaracterises the Hodgson–Knudsen position over Lamarckism. We show why the term is misleading (rather than strictly wrong) when applied to social evolution.     

Foreign trade, local protectionism and industrial location in China

In this paper, we find that, in China, geographical changes of industrial bases in the 1980s had led to a slight drop in the extent of specialization and location imbalance, but in 1990s the specialization and industry imbalance have further developed. The geographical advantage for trade has a significant impact on the location patterns, and the effects of local protectionism are confined to the hinterland in 1990s. The role of comparative advantage in shaping industry location is evident, and some predictions derived from new economic geography are partially supported. __________ Translated from Jingjixue (Jikan) 经济学(季刊) (China Economic Quarterly), 2006, 5(3): 733–760     

Optimal balanced growth in a general multi-sector endogenous growth model with constant returns

I will study a multi-sector endogenous growth model with general constant returns to scale technologies and demonstrate the existence, uniqueness and the saddle-path stability of the balanced growth equilibrium. I will first demonstrate the existence of a balanced growth equilibrium, by showing that the balanced growth rate associated with the balanced growth equilibrium is solely determined by solving a Frobenius root problem of the price equations derived from the Euler equations and the property of the nonsubstitution theorem. Then I will show the saddle-path stability of the balanced growth equilibrium without any capital intensity conditions, which is a generalized property proved in the two-sector endogenous growth models by de Guevara et al. (J Econ Dyn Control 21, 115–143, 1997), Bond et al. (J Econ Theory 68, 149–173 1996) and Mino (Int Eco Rev 37, 227–251 1996). The theorem clearly implies that the balanced growth equilibrium has a transition path in the neighborhood of the balanced growth equilibrium. The paper was presented at the conferences “Irregular Growth: Beyond Balanced Growth” held on June 19–21, 2003 in Paris and “Economic Growth and Distribution: On the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” held on June 16–18, 2004 in Lucca, Italy. From the discussion with Alain Venditti at CNRS-GREQAM, Gerhard Sorger at University of Vienna and the conference participants, I have been benefited much by writing this paper. Especially Alain Venditte had given me a chance to take a look at his unpublished paper titled ” Indeterminacy and the Role of Factor Substitutability” jointly written with Kazuo Nishimura at Kyoto University and published in Macroeconomic Dynamics, Vol. 8. The author also would like to thank an anonymous referee for useful suggestions.     

Dominated choices in a simple game with large stakes

This paper examines data from the Norwegian television game show Joker, where contestants make well-specified choices under risk. The game involves very large stakes, randomly drawn contestants, and ample opportunities for learning. Central models of risk choice, including expected utility theory, give a simple prediction of choice under weak conditions, as one decision is always first-order stochastically dominating. We document frequent, systematic and costly violations of dominance. Many contestants appear to have a systematic expectation bias that can be related to Tversky and Kahneman’s (Cogn. Psychol. 5(2):207–232, 1973) “availability heuristic”. In addition, contestants seem to make systematic calculation errors that are well captured by the so-called Fechner model.     

A bottom-up re-estimation of global fisheries subsidies

Using a recently developed database of fisheries subsidies for 148 maritime countries spanning 1989 to the present, total fisheries subsidies for the year 2003 is computed. A key feature of our estimation approach is that it explicitly deals with missing data from official sources, and includes estimates of subsidies to developing country fisheries. Our analysis suggests that global fisheries subsidies for 2003 are between US25 and 29 billion, which is higher than an earlier World Bank estimate of between US 25 and 29 billion, which is higher than an earlier World Bank estimate of between US 14–20 billion. This new estimate is lower than our 2000 global subsidies estimate of US$ 30–34 billion. We find that fuel subsidies compose about 15–30% of total global fishing subsidies, and that capacity enhancing subsidies sum to US$ 30–34 billion. We find that fuel subsidies compose about 15–30% of total global fishing subsidies, and that capacity enhancing subsidies sum to US 16 billion or about 60% of the total. These results imply that the global community is paying the fishing industry billions each year to continue fishing even when it would not be profitable otherwise—effectively funding the over-exploitation of marine resources.     

Why the structure of capital and the useful lives of its components matter: A test based on a model of Austrian descent

This paper centers on the structure of capital and the useful lives of its components by considering an economy with two representative firms, one producing a necessity and another producing a luxury. This difference determines their reinvestment opportunities. Therefore, while the one applies replacement, the other adopts scrapping. However, as these capital policies lead to different service lives, the analysis confronts the issues raised by Miller (Review of Income and Wealth 29:284–296, 1982, Review of Income and Wealth 36:67–82, 1990) and deals with them by drawing on Haavelmo’s (A study in the theory of investment, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960) suggestions regarding the aggregation of capital. Among other findings, it turns out that the simulation results are highly robust, thus demonstrating that real-world implications may be even stronger than strictly suggested by the model.

Moments of truncated <Emphasis Type="Italic">t</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">F</Emphasis> distributions

Truncated distributions commonly arise in economics and related areas, see, for example, Lee (Econ Lett 3:165–169, 1979), Lien (Econ Lett 19:243–247, 1985; Econ Lett 20:45–47, 1986), Burdett (Econ Lett 52:263–267, 1996), Sercu (Insur: Math and Econ 20:79–95, 1997), Abadir and Magdalinos (Econom Theory 18:1276–1287, 2002), and Horrace (J Econom 126:335–354, 2005). In this note, we consider the most commonly encountered truncated distributions with heavy tails: the truncated t distribution and the truncated F distribution. For each of these distributions, we derive explicit expressions for the moments and estimation procedures by the method of moments and the method of maximum likelihood. An application is illustrated to a popular data set in the econometric literature.      

Evolution of networks—an experimental analysis

It is the main aim of our paper to study network formation in experimental setups in discrete and continuous time. Our design is inspired by the theoretical model on network formation by Bala and Goyal (Econometrica, 68(5): 1181–1229, 2000) as well as the experiments by Callander and Plott (J. Public Econ., 89: 1469–1495, 2005) and Falk and Kosfeld (IEW Working Paper, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, No. 146, 2003). In particular, we analyze the role of star-shaped networks which are strict Nash-equilibria of the corresponding network formation game. Our experimental results show that strict Nash networks prove to be a good indicator for predicting network formation, particularly in continuous time. In explaining our results, it turns out that, among others, the complexity in coordinating on stars, the inequity aversion against unequal payoff distribution in the network, and the groups’ degrees of activity are the most important determinants for the formation of strict Nash networks.      

Common Trends and Common Cycles in Per Capita GDP: The Case of the G7 Countries, 1870–2001

In this paper we analyze per capita incomes of the G7 countries using the common cycles test developed by Vahid and Engle (Journal of Applied Econometrics, 8:341–360, 1993) and extended by Hecq et al. (Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 62:511–532, 2000; Econometric Reviews, 21:273–307, 2002) and the common trend test developed by Johansen (Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 12:231–254, 1988). Our main contribution is that we impose the common cycle and common trend restrictions in decomposing the innovations into permanent and transitory components. Our main finding is permanent shocks explain the bulk of the variations in incomes for the G7 countries over short time horizons, and is in sharp contrast to the bulk of the recent literature. We attribute this to the greater forecasting accuracy achieved, which we later confirm through performing a post sample forecasting exercise, from the variance decomposition analysis.

The social value of carbon sequestered in Great Britain's woodlands

The economic value of carbon storage associated with British woodland is calculated. Models were developed to estimate C flux associated with live trees, forest floor litter, soils, wood products, harvest, fossil fuel used in manufacturing and C displacement from biofuels and products for representative British plantation species: Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) and beech (Fagus sylvatica). Map databases of publicly and privately owned woodlands were compiled for Great Britain. Carbon flux was determined for individual woodland sites, and monetised using candidate parameters for the social discount rate (1, 3, 3.5 or 5%) and social value of carbon (US$109.5, $1, $10 or $17.10/t). A conventional discount function was applied. Final results are expressed as Net Present Values, for the base year 2001, with discounting commencing in 2002. The minimum suggested NPV (discount rate = 3% and social value of carbon = $1) of GB woodlands already existing in 2001 is $82 million, with a further $72 million that might be added by future afforestation. These figures rise dramatically if a discount rate of 1% and social value of sequestered carbon = $109.5/t are assumed. The calculated total value of C stored in British woodland depends significantly on parameter assumptions, especially about appropriate discount rate and social value of sequestered carbon.     

Equilibrium selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study

We perform an experiment on a pure coordination game with uncertainty about the payoffs. Our game is closely related to models that have been used in many macroeconomic and financial applications to solve problems of equilibrium indeterminacy. In our experiment, each subject receives a noisy signal about the true payoffs. This game (inspired by the “global” games of Carlsson and van Damme, Econometrica, 61, 989–1018, 1993) has a unique strategy profile that survives the iterative deletion of strictly dominated strategies (thus a unique Nash equilibrium). The equilibrium outcome coincides, on average, with the risk-dominant equilibrium outcome of the underlying coordination game. In the baseline game, the behavior of the subjects converges to the theoretical prediction after enough experience has been gained. The data (and the comments) suggest that this behavior can be explained by learning. To test this hypothesis, we use a different game with incomplete information, related to a complete information game where learning and prior experiments suggest a different behavior. Indeed, in the second treatment, the behavior did not converge to equilibrium within 50 periods in some of the sessions. We also run both games under complete information. The results are sufficiently similar between complete and incomplete information to suggest that risk-dominance is also an important part of the explanation.      

Hidden costs of control: four repetitions and an extension

We report four repetitions of Falk and Kosfeld’s (Am. Econ. Rev. 96(5):1611–1630, 2006) low and medium control treatments with 476 subjects. Each repetition employs a sample drawn from a standard subject pool of students and demographics vary across samples. We largely confirm the existence of hidden costs of control but, contrary to the original study, hidden costs of control are usually not substantial enough to significantly undermine the effectiveness of economic incentives. Our subjects were asked, at the end of the experimental session, to complete a questionnaire in which they had to state their work motivation in hypothetical scenarios. Our questionnaires are identical to the ones administered in Falk and Kosfeld’s (Am. Econ. Rev. 96(5):1611–1630, 2006) questionnaire study. In contrast to the game play data, our questionnaire data are similar to those of the original questionnaire study. In an attempt to solve this puzzle, we report an extension with 228 subjects where performance-contingent earnings are absent i.e. both principals and agents are paid according to a flat participation fee. We observe that hidden costs significantly outweigh benefits of control under hypothetical incentives.     

Superstition and real estate prices: transaction-level evidence from the US housing market

We investigate the impact of superstition on prices paid by Chinese-American home buyers. Chinese consider 8 lucky and 4 unlucky. Lacking explicit buyer ethnicity identifiers, we develop a binomial name classifier, a machine learning approach applicable to any data set containing names, that allows for falsification tests using other ethnic groups, and mitigates ambiguity from the transliteration of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet. Chinese buyers pay 1–2% premiums for addresses including an 8 and 1% discounts for addresses including a 4. These results are unrelated to unobserved property quality; no premium exists when Chinese sell to non-Chinese. The persistence of superstitions reflects the extent of cultural assimilation.     

A common trends model of UK core inflation

In this paper the long-run trend in RPI inflation (core inflation) for the UK over the 1961–1997 period is estimated within the framework of a multivariate common trends model which extends the bivariate VAR approach of Quah and Vahey (1995). In this context core inflation is directly linked to money and wage growth and interpreted as the long-run forecast of inflation from a small-scale, cointegrated macroeconomic system. First version received: September 1999/Final version received: October 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  We thank two anonymous referees for many helpful comments and suggestions. Work on this paper was partially conducted when C. Morana was at Heriot-Watt University.     

Parliament vs. Supreme court: a veto player framework of the Indian constitutional experiment in the area of economic and civil rights

This essay is on the Indian constitution and extends and responds to the work of Singh (Constitutional Political Economy 17:17, 2006) in the analysis of economic rights. The veto player framework is used to analyze the development of economic rights which was diminished and civil rights (through Public Interest Litigation) which was expanded since Indian independence. The Congleton Model (Constitutional Political Economy 12:193–215, 2001) and Tsebelis Model (British Journal of Political Science 25(3):298–325, 1995) on veto players are used to develop the hypotheses and analyze the evolution of the Indian constitution.