Separating what we eat from where: Measuring the effect of food away from home on diet quality

Many argue that food away from home (FAFH) is a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic, showing that body mass index and consumption of FAFH are positively correlated. However, correlation analyses using a simple regression approach, such as the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), do not prove that FAFH causes weight gain. We use a first-difference estimator to establish a causal relationship between FAFH and dietary intakes. Using dietary recall data from the 2003–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the 1994–1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, we find that FAFH does indeed increase caloric intake and reduce diet quality, but that the effect is smaller than if estimated using OLS. Thus, models based on associations are likely biased upward, as much as 25% by our estimates.     

投资基金瓜分半导体行业

投资者看到了稳定的现金流和并购需求 半导体行业已经到了并购的时刻.不论芯片公司的CEO对此承认与否,他们最好气势汹汹采取行动吃掉别人,要么就会被别人吃掉.     

国内外地热产业政策法规梳理与思考

目前,中国地热产业发展迅速,但相关政策法规仍不完善,管理混乱等现象严重.国外相对完善的政策法规体系对地热产业的快速持续和健康发展起到了有力的推动作用,经济激励政策降低了企业开发地热的成本和风险,提高了企业参与地热开发的积极性,政府对地热产业实行有效监督和管理,保障了地热资源开发的规范有序.建议中国地热产业制定统一完善的法律法规制度,建立具体细化的财税激励政策,多渠道加大资金支持力度.     

Consumer Decision-making at an Internet Shopbot: Brand Still Matters

Internet shopbots compare prices and service levels at competing retailers, creating a laboratory for analysing consumer choice. We analyse 20,268 shopbot consumers who select various books from 33 retailers over 69 days. Although each retailer offers a homogeneous product, we find that brand is an important determinant of consumer choice. The three most heavily branded retailers hold a $1.72 price advantage over more generic retailers in head-to-head price comparisons. In particular, we find that consumers use brand as a proxy for retailer credibility in non-contractible aspects of the product and service bundle, such as shipping reliability.     

Economics at the FTC: Mergers,Dominant-Firm Conduct,and Consumer Behavior

Economists at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pursue the agency’s competition and consumer protection missions. In this year’s essay, in antitrust, we discuss the new Merger Guidelines, three exclusion cases, and R&D issues in the Thoratec/HeartWare merger and the Google/AdMob merger. In consumer protection, we discuss the FTC’s new rule on debt settlement, our efforts to improve disclosures, and our recent work on appliance energy disclosures.     

国内外石油公司企业形象建设探析

企业形象识别系统是国际石油公司企业形象建设的基本维度和重要途径.国际石油公司普遍建立了相对完备的品牌形象管理架构和工作机制,企业形象传播具有较强的计划性和延续性,重视危机公关对企业形象的维护和修复作用.我国石油企业在国际竞争中存在软实力和硬实力不匹配、美誉度和贡献度不匹配的现象,企业形象建设亟待与国际接轨.需建立完善、稳定、高效的企业形象建设工作机制,构建适应国际化发展需要的企业形象识别系统,巩固和加强企业形象建设根基和基础,积极为企业形象建设营造良好的舆论环境.     

Economics at the FTC: Hospital Mergers,Authorized Generic Drugs,and Consumer Credit Markets

Economists at the Federal Trade Commission pursue the agency’s competition and consumer protection missions. In this year’s essay, in antitrust, we discuss various aspects of our hospital merger analyses as well as the effects of authorized generic drugs on consumers and competition. In consumer protection, we describe two ongoing studies on the use of credit-based insurance scores to price homeowners insurance, and the accuracy of consumers’ credit reports that are provided by credit bureaus.     

非主流服饰与当代消费文化

作为一种年轻时尚风格,非主流服饰脱胎于街头以及日韩风混搭,但这种服饰的流行不仅是当今青少年一代为了张扬个性、获得社会认可的风格和手段,而且与当代消费文化的流行有着广泛而直接的关联。他们通过选择某种商品的形式,不仅获得了一种身份认同,也通过选择这种商品使自己投身于当代时髦的消费文化大潮之中,这一过程既是对社会主流消费文化的认可,也是对主流时尚社会的挑战。     

Using IT in work at home: taking a closer look at IT use in home-located production

Canadian survey data indicate that information technology (IT) use is generally associated with increased odds of participation in home-located production (HLP), but this relationship is particularly strong for employees in routine (versus knowledge) occupations. Where IT use and HLP are associated with the odds of experiencing time-related work stress, it is in the direction of increasing the odds.     

People’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against epidemics

Animal epidemics are associated with significant economic damage and they negatively influence consumers’ meat consumption. Vaccination can be used as a strategy to prevent the outbreak of animal epidemics. The current study examines people’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against an animal epidemic. We asked people separately about their willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against both animal epidemics and against zoonoses. Zoonoses are also animal epidemics, but they might affect human health. A questionnaire was sent out to a representative sample of Swiss people and yielded N = 1033 completed datasets. Although animal vaccinations were highly accepted among those surveyed, compared to a wide range of other animal applications such as antibiotics, only about a quarter of those surveyed indicated that they would eat meat from animals vaccinated against a zoonosis. Some 60% indicated they would eat meat from animals vaccinated against an animal epidemic. We found attitudes about animal vaccination, knowledge about human vaccination, misunderstanding of animal treatments, and average meat consumption to significantly influence people’s willingness to eat meat from animals vaccinated against a zoonosis. Therefore, it is necessary that regulatory bodies provide information on both the safety of meat for human consumption and ways to minimize any potential health risks from the handling or consumption of meat products that might be infected in cases of zoonotic outbreaks.     

Reusing design knowledge based on design cases and knowledge map

Design knowledge was reused for innovative design work to support designers with product design knowledge and help designers who lack rich experiences to improve their design capacity and efficiency. First, based on the ontological model of product design knowledge constructed by taxonomy, implicit and explicit knowledge was extracted from some design cases. The design knowledge was expressed using a constructional organization. With the knowledge map, design knowledge was illustrated to help novice designers reconstruct specific design cases, thus, encouraging innovative design. Four groups of designers were invited to participate in an experiment for the design knowledge map system. The experiment results verified the effectiveness of the method.     

The option to work at home: another privilege for the favoured few?

This paper compares and contrasts the demographic and employment characteristics of those who have the option to work at home with those who actually carry out paid work where they live. The results suggest that having the opportunity to choose where to work represents another perk for those already occupying an advantaged position in the labour market. However, some of the most disadvantaged in society are found among those who actually do most of their work at home.     

Self‐Reflection and Articulated Consumer Preferences

Accurate measurement of consumer preferences reduces development costs and leads to successful products. Some product‐development teams use quantitative methods such as conjoint analysis or structured methods such as Casemap. Other product‐development teams rely on unstructured methods such as direct conversations with consumers, focus groups, or qualitative interviews. All methods assume that measured consumer preferences endure and are relevant for consumers' marketplace decisions. This article suggests that if consumers are not first given tasks to encourage preference self‐reflection, unstructured methods may not measure accurate and enduring preferences. This paper provides evidence that consumers learn their preferences as they make realistic decisions. Sufficiently challenging decision tasks encourage preference self‐reflection which, in turn, leads to more accurate and enduring measures. Evidence suggests further that if consumers are asked to articulate preferences before self‐reflection, then that articulation interferes with consumers' abilities to articulate preferences even after they have a chance to self‐reflect. The evidence that self‐reflection enhances accuracy is based on experiments in the automotive and mobile phone markets. Consumers completed three rotated incentive‐aligned preference measurement methods (revealed‐preference measures [as in conjoint analysis], a structured method [Casemap], and an unstructured preference‐articulation method). The stimuli were designed to be managerially relevant and realistic (53 aspects in automobiles, 22 aspects for mobile phones) so that consumers' decisions approximated in vivo decisions. One to three weeks later, consumers were asked which automobiles (or mobile phones) they would consider. Qualitative comments and response times are consistent with the implications of the measures of predictive ability.     

Building knowledge to improve enterprise performance from inventory simulation models

This paper describes the process of building knowledge to improve enterprise performance. This allows managers both to identify unknown risks and to develop solutions that mitigate these risks. One of the most critical risks that the enterprise faces involves the unidentified presence of serial-correlation components on the demand patterns. Depending upon the levels of such correlation, inventory control policies can be appreciably inaccurate. We propose to use a knowledge management portfolio that allows managers to capture and build knowledge from their complex systems. We find that the error generated from ignoring identified risk factors exponentially grows as the autocorrelation increases. We construct an enhanced simulated annealing algorithm that provides superior solutions to this type of problem.     

网络效应、消费偏好与标准竞争

完全信息静态标准竞争可能产生三种市场格局：技术标准市场不存在、个体标准并存、强势标准阻止弱势标准进入。强制标准化的错误来自两个方面：选择了错误的个体标准即弱势个体标准的标准化，错误地选择了标准化，即优势个体标准的标准化市场的社会福利低于竞争市场的社会福利。     

Structural social capital evolution and knowledge transfer: Evidence from an Irish pharmaceutical network

Businesses are becoming increasingly involved in collaboration networks to access external knowledge and sustain innovation. In this context, knowledge and knowledge transfer are considered an important source of innovation and competitive advantage. Social capital theory offers a theoretical approach to explain how individuals, groups, and organizations manage relationships and access knowledge resources. The structural dimension of social capital has stimulated debate regarding optimal network configuration to achieve innovation. The extant literature suggests network structures evolve from a bridging configuration to a bonding configuration without examining the details of how the evolution occurs within the network and its stage-by-stage impact on knowledge transfer. This study explores this relationship by analyzing the evolution of a successful Irish pharmaceutical network involving organizations from industry and academia. This research setting encompasses a rare network configuration in an industry known for its lack of collaboration among competing firms. Findings show that structural holes provide access to a set of complementary and heterogeneous knowledge. However, for such knowledge to be exploited, the network configuration has to evolve from a sparse network (small in size and characterized by weak ties across multiple organizational networks), to a large and cohesive network configuration characterized by high levels of commitment, trust, fine-grained information exchange, and joint problem solving. Mechanisms crucial to this evolution include consistently-scheduled meetings, training to communicate tacit knowledge, wide diffusion of knowledge through an on online portal, and relationship specific investments designed to safeguard intellectual property. Surprisingly, industry members appear to transition to a cohesive network faster than do academic members.     

Consumer voting and demand behavior regarding swine gestation crates

Consumers are increasingly interested in how animals are handled, transported, and cared for. This study provides the first examination of US resident support for a ballot initiative banning use of gestation crates (stalls) in the swine industry. Results suggest latent associations consumers possess between gestation crate use and perceptions of food safety, pork quality, and farm size are more influential determinants of ban support than observable socioeconomic factors. Implications for consumer groups, policy makers, and the swine industry are assessed. Moreover, several suggestions for valuable future research are outlined.     

Consumer preferences and the international harmonization of organic standards

Harmonization of technical standards is often advocated as a means to remove technical barriers that reduce the welfare gains available from international trade. Organic standards are not currently harmonized internationally. If domestic organic standards reflect consumer tastes, and consumers have strong preferences for those standards, then harmonization to a common standard may reduce the benefits consumers receive from organic products. Through a consumer survey, conjoint analysis was used to explore the preferences of consumers in the US, the UK and Canada for organic food. The results suggest that consumers in the three countries do not have a strong attachment to the current national organic standards and that international harmonization may be a legitimate food policy goal.     

Beer consumption and Third World nutrition

The consumption of alcoholic beverages, particularly commercially made beer, is rising rapidly in Third World countries. Yet very little is known about how this affects the nutritional status of those whose intake has increased (adult males) and that of their family members. The situation would appear to contain the potential for severe inequalities in the distribution of resources between those who hold the purse strings and those who do not. For this reason, the increase in sales of alcoholic beverages should be considered worthy of the attention of nutritionists and planners.     

Exploiting and creating knowledge through customer–supplier relationships: lessons from a case study

Through an in-depth analysis of a customer–supplier relationship in the information technology market, we illustrate the complexities of vertical coordination processes. We focus on the strategic and organizational criteria that suppliers and customers must design in order to favour interaction between their heterogeneous competencies. In the examined case, the supplier provides general purpose knowledge to be utilized and enriched through the contact with, and fertilization by, application abilities available at the customer level.