Research Note: Adolescents' perceptions of food chemical risks

A questionnaire measuring attitude towards four categories of food chemicals (colourings, flavourings, pesticides and fertilizers), level of concern for the environment, dietary habits and reasons for food choice was administered to 932 high school students aged 12-15 years during regular classroom periods. Students also indicated whether they could recall classroom teaching on 15 food and health related issues. Scores were derived representing self-reported frequency of eating (a) foods that were high in fat, or (b) fresh fruits and vegetables. Along with a measure of environmental concern, these were entered as covariates in the analysis of attitudes towards the different classes of additives. Age and gender had little effect on these attitudes. However, more positive attitudes towards both colourings and flavourings were associated with more frequent consumption of 'fat' foods and less frequent consumption of 'fresh' foods. Those with higher 'fat' diets also evaluated the use of pesticides more positively, whereas those expressing greater environmental concern were more opposed to flavourings, fertilizers and (marginally) pesticides. With regard to reasons for food choice, those with higher 'fat' and lower 'fresh' diets appeared to place more weight on pleasure than on nutritional information, whereas those higher on environmental concern paid more attention to labelling and food value. Older students were more able to choose their own diet, but attended less to the health value of the foods they chose, and expressed less trust in food labelling and government control. These findings suggest that judgements of risk are guided by evaluative associations, derived partly from more general attitudes and previous behaviour.     

The futures of genetically-modified foods: Global threat or panacea?

Genetically-modified foods represent a potential solution of the world food crises, but they are also feared as potential dangers for human health, environment and biodiversity. Considering the history of genetically-modified foods and their present situation, this study develops and validates three complex scenarios regarding the future evolution of genetically-modified foods. The plausibility of these scenarios is tested using five food experts, as well as two demographically-representative groups of French and U.K. respondents. The present situation and potential evolution of genetically-modified foodsis also analyzed using the Innovation Diffusion Theory, as well as a Value-based Perspective.     

Perception of gene technology,and food risks: results of a survey in Switzerland

Perceptions of and attitudes toward genetically engineered food and other food hazards were examined through data from telephone interviews conducted in Switzerland. A random quota sample was used ( N v = v 1001). General attitudes toward technology and political beliefs significantly influenced perceptions of gene technology. Women were more concerned about gene technology and food risks than men were. The term 'gene technology' evoked neutral or negative associations in most people; few people held positive images regarding this technology. Perception and acceptance of gene technology varied according to the type of application; people were less concerned about convenience or processed food. Although it is mandatory to label genetically modified food in Switzerland, relatively few people were familiar with this label. Participants assessed various food risks, and principal components analysis indicated that they distinguished between technological and natural food risks. Implications of these results are discussed.     

What's on the Menu? Policies to Reduce Young People's Sugar Consumption

Young people in the UK consume far above the maximum recommended levels of added sugar. It is likely that neither they nor their parents fully take account of the future health, social and economic costs of this high sugar consumption. This provides a rationale for policy intervention. The majority of young people's added sugar consumption occurs in the home, where purchases are typically made by parents. This means that understanding the purchase decisions of adults is important for policy design, even if the policies aim to reduce the consumption of young people. We discuss the merits of popular policies, including taxes, advertising restrictions and restrictions on the availability of specific foods, and we identify promising avenues for future research.     

中国食物自给率及其影响因素分析:基于营养源视角

基于营养源视角,运用灰色关联方法考量中国食物自给率及其影响因素。结果发现：1961—2013年中国综合食物自给率整体呈下降趋势,2000-2005年呈现明显的倒“U”形变化。从其结构而言,产品间差异较大;就其影响因素而言,生产、消费、贸易环节各主要影响因素的影响效应各有差异。测算显示,根据目前的生产布局,到2020年除谷物、糖料、蔬菜作物的自给率上升外,大豆、油料、肉类自给率将持续下降。     

The impact of soda taxes on consumer welfare: implications of storability and taste heterogeneity

The typical analysis on the effectiveness of soda taxes relies on price elasticity estimates from static demand models, which ignores consumers' inventory behaviors and their persistent tastes. This article provides estimates of the relevant price elasticities based on a dynamic demand model that better addresses potential intertemporal substitution and unobservable persistent heterogeneous tastes. It finds that static analyses overestimate the long‐run own‐price elasticity of regular soda by 60.8%, leading to overestimated consumption reduction of sugar‐sweetened soft drinks by up to 57.9% in some cases. Results indicate that soda taxes will raise revenue but are unlikely to substantially impact soda consumption.     

The dollar and its discontents

Has the US dollar delivered the benefits that the rest of the world is expecting from its holdings of international liquidity? US government debt has been liquid and safe, and it is supplied in sufficient quantity. But it has given a low return to the countries that accumulated the most reserves, especially when those returns are measured in terms of the countries' own consumption. I argue in this paper that the countries that accumulate the most reserves should expect a low return in terms of their own consumption, and that there is little that international monetary reform can do to change that fact.     

Perceived health risks and perceptions of expert consensus in modern food society

The article deals with perceptions of food and health risks. Relevant questions are: (1) To what degree do consumers associate specific negative health consequences with food additives and genetically modified food, and do their perceptions differ from the experts’ views? (2) How do consumers perceive experts’ evaluations of health risks connected to food additives and genetically modified food? The results are based on a survey of Norwegian residents in 1999/2000, and of a selected sample of Norwegian experts on food and risks. There were great differences between consumers and experts in their assessments of health risks. To varying extents, consumers associate various health consequences with the risk factors. Consumers seem to perceive experts as more united about the risk factors as health risks than experts do themselves. The findings are discussed with reference to the stigma concept and to a social constructionist perspective. The results contribute to the understanding of consumer perception of risks and their understanding of expert agreement about health risks. They also point to the importance of the interplay between consumers and experts in the public debate and communication process about food and risks.     

地方政府财政支出的民生化进程与农村居民消费——基于总量和分类支出视角下的理论分析与实证检验

基于总量和分类支出的视角,从宏观层面对地方政府民生财政支出与农村居民消费进行理论分析,并采用1998~2011年中国大陆31个省市面板数据加以实证检验,研究结果表明：地方政府民生财政支出确实有效地促进了农村居民消费,尤其是对以教育文化娱乐、医疗保健等为主的发展享受性消费的挤入程度要大于以衣食住为主的基本生存性消费;但在民生财政具体分类支出方面影响却存在着差异,即教育和医疗卫生支出对农村居民消费产生显著的挤入效应,而文化和社会保障等支出影响微弱。因此,在稳步扩大民生财政支出比重的同时,应注重优化民生财政支出结构,增加农村居民收入等,全面提高农村居民消费水平。     

Consumer versus Expert Hazard Identification: A Mental Models Study of Mutation‐bred Rice

Novel foods have been the object of intense public debate in recent years. Despite efforts to communicate the outcomes of risk assessments to consumers, public confidence in the management of potential risks has been low. Various reasons behind this have been identified, chiefly a disagreement between technical experts and consumers over the nature of the hazards on which risk assessments should focus, and perceptions of insufficient openness about uncertainties in risk assessment. Whilst previous research has almost exclusively focused on genetically modified foods, the present paper investigates plant varieties developed by means of mutation breeding, a less‐debated class of novel foods. Two studies were conducted that investigated the mental models of experts and laypeople. The results revealed that the mental models of both groups differed in terms of scope, depth and the role of uncertainty. Furthermore, a number of misconceptions became apparent in the study of laypeople's mental models, often related to the regulatory system governing risk assessments of novel foods. Critical issue are outlined and communication needs are discussed.     

The Impact of a Conditional Cash Transfer Programme on Consumption in Colombia*

This paper studies the impact of a conditional cash transfer programme in Colombia on the total consumption of very poor households and on its components. Our evaluation methodology involves comparing household expenditures in areas in which the programme was not implemented (control) and those in which it was (treated). We use a quasi‐experimental approach, as the Familias en Acción programme was not randomly assigned across localities, for political reasons. We condition on a large range of household‐ and municipality‐level characteristics, and also control for pre‐programme differences in the outcomes of interest using a differences‐indifferences methodology. We find that the programme has been effective at greatly increasing total consumption and its main component, food consumption, in both rural and urban areas. The programme has also contributed to improvements in the quality of food consumed, in particular of items rich in proteins (milk, meat and eggs) and of cereals. Furthermore, the programme has created redistributive effects in favour of children through expenditure on education and children's clothing, while it has not significantly affected consumption of adult goods such as alcohol and tobacco or adults’clothing.     

The future of food: countering globalisation and recolonisation of Indian agriculture

India, with a billion plus population, has put agriculture at the heart of its economy and food security at the centre of its agriculture policy. However, all the decisions and policies of a free and independent India which replaced colonial policies of land alienation, and concentration on ownership of land, super exploitation of the peasantry, the creation of famines are being undone through globalisation. These policies are bringing back “zamindari” and land monopolies of colonial times. The public distribution system (PDS) is being dismantled. Farmers are committing suicides, reports of starvation deaths have become common, foreboding a return of famines last experienced under British rule. Biodiversity is being rapidly eroded, and food, the very source of health and nutrition has become a major source of health hazards caused by toxic chemicals in factory farming and new genetically engineered foods and crops. This paper examines these developments in detail and proposes an agenda for creating an alternative future of food and highlights the current practices that are working towards this alternative.     

What do professional forecasters' stock market expectations tell us about herding,information extraction and beauty contests?

We study how professional forecasters form equity market expectations based on a new micro-level dataset which includes rich cross-sectional information about individual characteristics. We focus on testing whether agents rely on the beliefs of others, i.e., consensus expectations, when forming their own forecast. We find strong evidence that the average of all forecasters' beliefs influences an individual's own forecast. This effect is stronger for young and less experienced forecasters as well as forecasters whose pay depends more on performance relative to a benchmark. Further tests indicate that neither information extraction to incorporate dispersed private information, nor herding for reputational reasons can fully explain these results, leaving Keynes' beauty contest argument as a potential candidate for explaining forecaster behavior.     

Rating of worry about energy sources with respect to public health,environmental health,and workers

Environmental risks of different energy sources pose a significant problem for managers, decision-makers, and the general public. Attitudes and perceptions may differ by type of energy, as well as the recipient of the harm. A post-Fukushima survey of students and others in a university community in central New Jersey was conducted to determine how much people worried about the potential effects of different energy types (nuclear, chemical, coal, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and gas), which aspect they worried about (public health, workers, and the environment), and which form they thought the USA should further develop. Ratings for worry varied significantly by energy type and receptor type. In general, worry was greater for all aspects of chemical, coal, nuclear, and gas, and significantly less for hydro, solar, and wind. Worry was generally higher for exposure from the plant, exposure from food and water, exposure to workers, and exposure for wildlife than for either transportation issues or exposure from everyday occurrences. The same exposures (or targets) were rated for each energy source. The greatest worry for each energy type was as follows: (1) nuclear exposure to radiation in food, although worker exposure and exposure from the plant were very close, (2) chemical exposure was from accidents in the plant, (3) coal was from harmful effects of mercury on wildlife, (4) hydro was from contamination of drinking water, (5) solar was from harmful UV radiation exposure in wildlife, (6) wind was from mortality of birds due to wind turbines, and (7) gas was from harmful gas exposure to wildlife. Overall, the highest rated features in terms of worry (four of seven energy forms) were for wildlife. The survey population believed that wind, solar, tidal, and hydro power should be developed further, and coal should be developed the least.     

More Faust than Frankenstein: the European debate about the precautionary principle and risk regulation for genetically modified crops

This paper analyses the range of risk-related problems that have arisen over the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and food products in the context of the adoption of the precautionary principle (PP) in Europe. Adoption of the PP was intended to avoid some of the environmental problems that arose from the earlier reactive/preventive regulatory system developed for pesticides and also to encourage public acceptance of the new technology but is failing to achieve either of these aims. It is argued that a distinction needs to be made between interest-based and ethical or valuebased responses to risk issues and different approaches to conflict resolution are needed in each case. The PP can be seen as having allowed ethical and value-based concerns to have a new role in risk debates in contexts where they were previously excluded. Despite journalistic references to 'Frankenstein foods' the major protagonists in the debate about GM crops and foods are more concerned about the Faustian bargain which puts science, technology and the industries that increasingly control them in charge of world food production systems. Rather than abandoning the PP, as has been suggested by some risk analysts, a more balanced approach to incorporating it into risk regulation, coupled to balanced skepticism about the motivations of stakeholders, is outlined as a starting point to break into the current escalating cycle of conflict while also meeting the needs of modern industrial societies.     

Does the independence of independent directors matter?

This paper analyzes the characteristics of firms that declare board directors as independents, although the directors are not strictly independent, and examines the consequences in terms of performance and corporate governance outcomes. Based on publicly available information, eight criteria of “independence” used to examine a panel of Spanish listed firms classify 14.2% of the directors as strictly independent, whereas the firms classify 32.5% of the board as independent directors. Firms with dispersed ownership structures misclassify directors more frequently than do firms with large controlling owners. In terms of consequences, we find weak evidence of a negative relation between misclassification and a firm's future operating performance. However, no relation is found between independents' misclassification and several relevant outcomes of the primary delegated committees with monitoring roles: the audit committee and the nomination and remuneration committee. There is no significance with regard to the non-strictly independent measures explaining executive directors' compensation, CEO turnover, audit qualifications or earning management behavior.     

The Allocational Effects of the Precision of Accounting Estimates

This paper studies the allocational effects associated with the precision of accounting estimates when the precision of estimates is a choice variable for firms. One part of the paper considers the effects of the observability of precision choices. We show that, generally, making precision choices private increases firms' equilibrium precision choices and also, as a by‐product, their equilibrium investment choices. We further show that, when firms' precision choices are private, there may be a “disclosure trap,” in which, unless investors conjecture the owner has chosen an estimate with the highest possible precision, the owner will respond to investors' conjecture by choosing an estimate whose precision is higher than investors' conjecture. In a multifirm version of the model with endogenous investment, we show that the equilibrium investment by the firm increases in the precision of the firm's own estimate and decreases in the precisions of other firms' estimates. Finally, we show that, in a setting where the firm's initial owner sells his stake in the firm over the course of two periods, with disclosures of estimates of the firm's value occurring prior to each sale of shares, if the precisions of the estimates are public, the equilibrium precisions of the estimates increase over time when the owner sells a sufficiently large fraction of the firm in the first period, and otherwise the equilibrium precisions of estimates remain constant over time.     

Sensitivity of willingness to pay to the magnitude of risk reduction: a Taiwan­United States comparison

Estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) for health, environmental, and other goods obtained using contingent valuation (CV) have been criticized as inadequately sensitive to the scope or magnitude of the good. We investigate the sensitivity of WTP to variation in the magnitude of reductions in health risk using survey data collected in two countries, Taiwan and the United States, that differ dramatically with respect to economic development and cultural background. WTP is elicited for reductions in acute risks associated with food poisoning and blood transfusion, and for reductions in the chronic risk of pneumonia at advanced ages. Results are similar in the two countries and provide little evidence that CV-based estimates are sufficiently sensitive to the magnitude of the risk reduction. Inadequate sensitivity of estimated WTP to the magnitude of risk reduction suggests that improved methods are required for estimating consumers' rates of substitution between health risk and other goods.     

The role of epistemic policies in regulatory science: scientific substantiation of health claims in the European Union

This paper presents an analysis of the concept of scientific substantiation in European health claims regulation. It focuses on the controversies about the demand for the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships between food consumption and health outcomes in claim substantiation. Our analysis, on the basis of regulatory and scientific documents, identifies two opposing views about the aims of health claims regulation. Each of these two stances links certain regulatory objectives with specific epistemic policies, that is particular sets of scientific methodology, criteria, and procedure. The regulators, in selecting a demanding evidentiary approach based on a hierarchy of methodologies that requires causal data for substantiation of claims, give priority to preventing the authorization of false claims. The opposing view, espoused by the critics of this approach, opts for less demanding requirements for substantiation, implying the market availability of a wider range of products with health claims that may provide individual as well as public health benefits. We argue that one of the objectives that underlie the European regulators’ demand for causal data is to protect their own credibility, by trying to isolate them from value-laden debates about the limitations of scientific methodologies, as well as the societal and policy implications of regulatory decision-making.