The Cost of Inaccurate Consumer Information: The Case of the EPA Mileage Figures

The EPA fuel economy estimates for automobiles are an important instrument of public policy and are widely publicized. However, the accuracy of these figures, for use by consumers as an estimate of actual on-the-road mileage, has come under increasing challenge. Consumers Union provides alternative fuel efficiency estimates for the cars it tests, based on actual on-the-road driving. This study calculates the costs of in-accuracies in the EPA's Estimated Mileage, assuming consumers use those figures in making their automobile purchase decisions, but in actual driving achieve mileage equivalent to the Consumers Union's figures. The economic impact includes potentially large unanticipated additional expenditures on gasoline by consumers and in a few cases unexpected gasoline savings; also included is a net social welfare loss due to allocative error. This loss provides a measure of the gains to society obtainable from improvements in the reliability of the EPA estimates as a source of mileage information for consumers.     

顾客参与新产品开发的绩效影响:产品创新类型的调节效应

顾客参与企业新产品开发对新产品开发绩效有着重要影响,在处于转型经济背景下的中国进行相关研究更有着极为重要的战略意义。文章以B-B市场中的制造企业为研究对象,构建了以产品创新类型为调节变量的顾客参与对新产品开发绩效差异化影响的调节效应模型。研究表明,顾客参与对新产品开发时间绩效与创新绩效的积极影响会受到产品创新类型的调节作用;但产品创新类型对顾客参与和财务绩效关系的调节影响不显著。     

Consumer Acceptance of a New Experience Good: A Case Study of Vacuum Packed Fresh Beef

Vacuum packaging represents an alternative way of providing fresh beef to food shoppers. However, the air-tight seal leads to the beef having a brownish-red color in the package. Consequently, there is an information gap between consumers' perception of red indicating quality fresh beef and the appearance in vacuum packaging. A regression model is estimated using scan data to compare four cuts of steak in the two types of packaging. Results suggest that the information gap is a problem for three lower priced steaks but not for filet mignon.     

The Impact of Innovativeness and Development Time on New Product Performance for Small Firms

Timing is becoming a new source of competitive advantage. The business press extols the benefits of faster product development. This paper examines whether competitive advantage can be gained by reducing development time across all types of new products or whether this advantage is restricted to certain types of new products. It proposes that product innovativeness moderates the relationship between development time and initial market performance. A survey of 110 small manufacturing firms in computer related industries supports the hypothesis. The survey findings indicate that a firm must guard against over- or under-development of the new product since product innovativeness was found to influence the impact of development time on market performance. The implications for managers are: beware of bringing a new product that is too much, too early or too little, too late.     

Networks to Enforce European Law: The Case of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network

Central to this paper is the aim to discuss the effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (also known as ??CPC Network??) for consumer protection in cross-border disputes in the European Union (EU). In doing so, this paper deals with the literature about networks established by grouping the Commission and national authorities to enforce European Law. The examples of the European Competition Network and the CPC Network are interesting because they raise questions with regard to the effectiveness and the accountability of emerging network-based law enforcement. The development of the CPC Network may have relevant implications for other areas of EU law and policy, including the question whether network-based governance could be transposed in other fields of EU Law.     

Supply Chain Transparency as a Consumer or Corporate Tool: The Case of Nudie Jeans Co

Outsourcing has led both to the embedding of questionable sustainability practices in opaque supply chains and to anti-sweatshop challenges demanding more transparent supply chains. Previous research has argued that supply chain transparency can be both a consumer tool empowering consumers to pressure disclosing firms to improve sustainability conditions and a corporate tool for increasing revenues. Based on a study of the transparency project of Swedish company Nudie Jeans, the authors demonstrate that consumers do not leverage transparency but that transparency improves consumer willingness to buy. In doing this, the authors contribute to the literature in two important ways. First, the authors provide one of the first, if not the first, studies of whether consumers in practice leverage increased supply chain transparency, challenging the previous research claim that supply chain transparency is a useful consumer tool. Second, the authors move beyond studies of purchasing intentions and willingness to buy in experimental settings and confirm that supply chain transparency is a useful corporate tool in practice. The authors conclude by discussing the policy implications of companies being able to use transparency to increase sales without subjecting themselves to increased consumer pressure.     

Time as a Direct Source of Utility: The Case of Price Information Search for Groceries

A “joint production” model that combines aspects of household production and the economics of information is formulated to explain variation in time spent in price information search for groceries by dual earner households. Enjoyment of search time, a psychological variable, is incorporated into the model. Empirical estimation using grocery expenditure data indicates that enjoyment, income, age, the price of search time, presence of young and teenage children, daily use of a microwave oven, and the percentage of a market basket filled with name brand items are significant factors in explaining variation in time spent in price information search.     

Assessing the Validity of Consumer Ratings for Higher Education: Evidence from a New Survey

This analysis assesses the validity of using consumer surveys to measure the quality of colleges using new survey data from the Strada‐Gallup Education Consumer Survey. I develop an individual consumer rating based on responses to 14 items related to the quality of education and implement two validity tests: Do higher ratings predict higher welfare, and do they correspond to objective quality measures? I conclude that they do. Indeed, the mean ratings of at least 20 other alumni provide a better prediction of individual satisfaction than popular college rankings from media sources. Consumers rate their experiences higher after attending not‐for‐profit colleges that generate better economic opportunities, enroll students with higher test scores, employ well‐paid faculty, and graduate a higher percentage of students who eventually earn doctorates. I conclude that survey‐based consumer ratings of postsecondary institutions can provide valid and reliable quality comparisons.     

The Brave New World of Organ Transplantation: Issues and Challenges from a Consumer Affairs Perspective

Policy makers are trying to narrow the widening gap between the demand and the supply of transplantable organs. They are doing so largely without contributions from consumer affairs specialists. This article establishes the need for involvement of consumer affairs scholars and suggests directions for further empirical and critical inquiry. Substantive research must be grounded more firmly in established theoretical constructs and behavioral theories.     

Fornell,Claes. Consumer Input for Marketing Decisions,a Study of Corporate Departments for Consumer Affairs. New York: Praeger, 1976

This study examined whether children recognized advergames as a type of advertising and the efficacy of an advertising literacy program. Results indicated that without the advertising literacy education, about three-quarters of the children did not recognize advergames as a type of advertising. However, those with advertising literacy education showed a significantly enhanced understanding. Also, a series of mediation tests showed that recognition of advertising was an indirect-only mediator between the advertising literacy and skeptical attitudes toward advertising. Only those who viewed the advergame as a type of advertising demonstrated more skeptical attitudes toward it.     

Export Performance and Access to Intermediate Inputs: The Case of Rules of Origin Liberalisation

Internationally fragmented production processes have highlighted the need of efficient sourcing from foreign suppliers. This paper aims to investigate how exports of final goods are affected by better access to foreign intermediate inputs. In particular, the paper empirically tests whether expanding the set of available intermediate input suppliers through preferential rules of origin liberalisation affects exports of final goods. We exploit the introduction of the southern Mediterranean countries into the Pan‐Euro‐Med zone of diagonal cumulation which meant that foreign intermediate inputs could be used from more countries than before without jeopardising the preferential access to the EU. Using a fixed effects specification that controls for detailed levels of unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance, we examine the effect of the new diagonal cumulation possibilities on southern Mediterranean exports to EU‐15. We find a positive effect on both export intensity, the value of exports, and export diversification, the number of exported products. Being part of the Pan‐Euro‐Med zone of diagonal cumulation is associated with a 20 per cent increase in export intensity and a 5 per cent increase in export diversification.     

The Price of a Warranty: The Case for Refrigerators

Hedonic price analysis was used to estimate the implicit market prices of the physical attributes and warranty provisions of refrigerators. Estimates were made of the implicit market prices of 2 warranty provisions, 6 physical characteristics and 13 brands using 1975 data on 156 models. The estimates were made of the implicit market prices of an additional 4 years and 9 years warranty coverage beyond the typical 1 year coverage. The results suggest that the implicit price of such additional warranty coverage exceeds (a) the cost of a service contract for a similar period, and (b) estimates of the present value of the expected cost of repairs.     

One Leader is Not Enough for Major New Service Development: Results of a Consumer Banking Study

This article reports the results of a study into leadership in retail bank product development. New product development is an increasingly important business activity in many services businesses. Financial services specialists involved in this activity are required to have an understanding of project working that aims to match new product concepts to potential customer needs. In the empirical study reported here all the new product projects were aimed at developing a new area of business and were of great potential importance to the sponsoring businesses in which they were pursued. It was found that success in completing a project efficiently was associated with effective co-leadership between different levels of the organisation. Lesser project success was found when leadership was confined to a single leader. Co-leadership involved a common leadership style that was enabling, participative and highly communicative. Empowering junior colleagues to act as co-leaders confronts top management with challenges to traditional concepts of authority. Our results show how enlightened top management turns these challenges to the best advantage of their business.     

Alan Lawson. A Commonwealth of Hope: The New Deal Response to Crisis

The title of Alan Lawson's new book, A Commonwealth of Hope:The New Deal Response to Crisis, arises from his view that thetremendous intellectual and social ferment of the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries had a far more formative influenceon the architects of the 1930s New Deal than has been acknowledged.During the earlier era the term "commonwealth" was used to describe"the ideal American society by those with a hopeful vision ofAmerica's governing prospects" (xi). The bounty produced by     

Principles and Visions of a New Consumer Policy: Discussion Paper by the Scientific Advisory Board for Consumer,Food, and Nutrition Policy to the German Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection,Food, and Agriculture

Journal of Consumer Policy -     

非财务绩效测量中的宽容之困:以知识工作者的信息工作为例

非财务绩效测量十分依赖于管理者主观判断,因此,管理者宽容构成非财务绩效测量偏差的重要成因。管理者宽容可能会对个体内生动机产生影响,进而影响到个体非财务绩效。以知识工作者的信息工作为例,文章假设并检验了管理者宽容在竞争优势感知以及声誉激励与内生动机之间的调节效应。研究表明,管理者宽容通过两种途径影响信息工作绩效:其一,它调节着竞争优势感知及声誉激励对内生动机的强化作用,进而影响到信息工作绩效;其二,它调节着声誉激励对信息工作绩效的促进作用。文章发现,对于不同类型的激励因素,管理者宽容的调节效应存在不同。本文有助于管理者合理地对知识工作者的非财务绩效进行评价,从而有效地激励知识工作者。     

Relationship Commitment and Ethical Consumer Behavior in a Retail Setting: The Case of Receiving Too Much Change at the Checkout

In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine the effect of relationship commitment on the reaction of shoppers to receiving too much change, controlling for the amount of excess change. Hypotheses based on equity theory, opportunism and guilt were set up and tested. The first study showed that, when the less committed consumer is confronted with a large excess of change, he/she is less likely to report this mistake, compared with a small excess. Conversely, consumers with a high commitment towards the retailer are more likely to tell when they receive too much change, especially when the amount is large. The second experiment provided an explanation for these findings: the less committed consumer is driven by opportunism, whereas guilt-related feelings play an important role in a high commitment relationship. These results have several implications for both retail management and future research.     

Information Exchange as a Means of Collusion: The Case of the Italian Car Insurance Market

This paper employs an econometric methodology (the Panzar-Rosse H-statistic) to test the level of competition in the Italian car insurance market, where in 2000 the Antitrust Authority imposed a conspicuous fine on 39 companies for their anti-competitive behavior deriving from an ad hoc information exchange from 1994 onwards. Our set of results shows that during the years 1998–2003 the group of firms whose business in the motor segment exceeds 60% of total gross premiums has earned revenues as if it were under monopoly or collusive oligopoly conditions, and therefore appears to support the decision of the Antitrust Authority.