Mandatory versus voluntary labelling of genetically modified food: evidence from an economic experiment

Opponents of the voluntary labelling scheme for genetically modified (GM) food products often argue that consumers have the “right to know” and therefore advocate mandatory labelling. In this article, we argue against this line of reasoning. Using experimental auctions we show that the quality of the signal generated by a mandatory labelling scheme is affected by the number of labels in the market. If there are two labels, one for GM products and one for non‐GM products, mandatory and voluntary labelling schemes generate a similar degree of uncertainty about the quality of products that do not carry a label.     

Efficiency analysis of East European electricity distribution in transition: legacy of the past?

This paper provides a cross-country efficiency analysis of electricity distribution companies in the East European transition countries of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. We use common nonparametric efficiency measurement such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) under different assumptions and apply recent developments of statistical inference in nonparametric frontier models to test our hypotheses. We discuss the empirical problems of cross-country benchmarking approaches, in particular the comparability of different structures of electricity distribution companies. Our results suggest that Poland’s distribution companies are still inefficiently small; the Czech Republic features the highest efficiency; and Slovakia and Hungary occupy the middle range. We also note that privatization has had a positive effect on technical efficiency in the four countries. We use the phrase “legacy of the past” to describe the four countries in comparison to the efficiency of electricity distribution companies we studied in Germany.

The influence of low-fare airlines on vacation choices of students: Results of a stated portfolio choice experiment

This paper reports the results of a portfolio model of vacation choices of students. The portfolio model concerns the combined choice of destination type, transport mode, duration, accommodation, and travel party for vacations. In addition to usual transport modes such as airline, train, bus and car, a distinction was made between low-fare airlines, as these may be especially appealing to students, and regular airlines. Stated choice data were used to estimate the model. The attributes of the transport modes were systematically varied in the experiment, while respondents were faced with free options for the other choice facets. Estimation results indicated that the developed model of portfolio choice performs satisfactory. In substantive terms, it seems that transport mode predominantly influences the portfolio choices. The attributes that are significant tend to amplify the specific role of transport modes in general and low-fare airlines in particular.     

The ethical implications of collecting data in educational settings: discussion on the technology and engineering attitude scale (TEAS) and its psychometric validation for assessing a pre-engineering design program

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - K-12 Engineering Education has placed a lot of attention on students’ attitudes or predispositions towards science and technology....     

How friendly destination websites are for mobiles? A study of destination marketing organizations in the Asia Pacific region

ABSTRACT

The core objectives of this exploratory study are (1) to examine the friendliness of destination websites for mobiles and (2) to profile the features available in different versions of mobile destination websites. Through employing the device emulator testing approach to analyze websites of top destinations in the Asia Pacific region, this study finds that destination marketing organizations in the Asia Pacific region have been optimizing their official websites for mobiles over the past few years. A responsive web design approach is predominantly used by the analyzed destination, and more features are founded to be available in “fully mobile-friendly websites.”     

Do public banks have a competitive advantage?

Public banks are often blamed to possess an unfair competitive advantage in the form of lower funding costs due to a state guarantee on their deposits. However, public and private banks tend to differ not only in their funding costs, but also in the way they deal with borrowers in financial distress. The model presented in this paper shows that if banks differ in these two characteristics, a separation of borrowers may result, with public banks lending to risky firms and private banks lending to safe firms. This separation can explain differences in the lending behavior and performance of public and private banks as observed in the market. Interestingly, the separation may persist even when funding costs are equal, implying that an abolition of state guarantees will not necessarily lead to identical performance of the two types of banks.     

Evaluating Social Policy by Experimental and Nonexperimental Methods

Although it is important to establish causal relationships in social policy evaluation, the effects are difficult to observe due to sample selection. To evaluate the performance of estimators designed to handle sample selection bias, we analyse data from a Norwegian rehabilitation project with a randomised experimental design. The data permit us to compare the performance of different nonexperimental estimators with the experimental results. In our case study we find that nonexperimental evaluation based on sample selection estimators with selection terms that fail to meet conventional levels of statistical significance is highly unreliable. The difference in difference estimator and propensity score matching estimators perform better in our context.
JEL classification : C 51; J 24; H 43; I 12     

Inequality aversion and the house money effect

In this paper, we analyse if individual inequality aversion measured with simple experimental games depends on whether the monetary endowment in these games is either a windfall gain (“house money”) or a reward for a certain effort-related performance. We then examine whether the way of preference elicitation affects the explanatory power of inequality aversion in social dilemma situations. Our results indicate that individual inequality aversion measured by the model of Fehr and Schmidt (Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3):817–868, 1999) is not generally robust to the way endowments emerge. The inequality aversion model has only low predictive power for individual behaviour. It performs best when the endowment is house money and relatively small.