Hispanic consumer acculturation and food safety concerns

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of Hispanic consumer acculturation on concerns about food safety and pesticide residues, and attitudes toward pesticide-related agricultural practices. Two 3-min bilingual, English and Spanish, videos presenting information on integrated pest management (IPM) farming practices were shown in controlled settings to Californian Hispanic consumers (n = 91). Findings reveal that acculturation among Hispanic consumers, language of use and length of residency in the United States, are significant factors associated with consumer concerns about the safety of domestic grown and imported produce at the supermarket. Overall, however the research suggests a substantial lack of information by Hispanic consumers regardless of level of acculturation. Pre- and post-video survey results show significant change in attitude among Hispanic consumers toward food safety, farming practices, and university efforts to help farmers control pests and assist with other management techniques. These findings suggest that bilingual educational programmes on food safety and the use of pesticides by farmers would be appropriate.     

Network Games

In contexts ranging from public goods provision to information collection, a player's well-being depends on his or her own action as well as on the actions taken by his or her neighbours. We provide a framework to analyse such strategic interactions when neighbourhood structure, modelled in terms of an underlying network of connections, affects payoffs. In our framework, individuals are partially informed about the structure of the social network. The introduction of incomplete information allows us to provide general results characterizing how the network structure, an individual's position within the network, the nature of games (strategic substitutes vs. complements and positive vs. negative externalities) and the level of information shape individual behaviour and payoffs.     

Implications of Keeping‐Up‐with‐the‐Joneses Behavior for the Equilibrium Cross Section of Stock Returns: International Evidence

This paper tests the cross‐sectional implications of “keeping‐up‐with‐the‐Joneses” (KUJ) preferences in an international setting. When agents have KUJ preferences, in the presence of undiversifiable nonfinancial wealth, both world and domestic risk (the idiosyncratic component of domestic wealth) are priced, and the equilibrium price of risk of the domestic factor is negative. We use labor income as a proxy for domestic wealth and find empirical support for these predictions. In terms of explaining the cross‐section of stock returns and the size of the pricing errors, the model performs better than alternative international asset pricing models.     

The investment development path of newly developed countries

According to foreign direct investment (FDI) path theory, developed countries are grouped into two phases, known as the fourth and fifth phases. Fourth‐phase countries (newly developed economies) show a technological and institutional “gap” in comparison with fifth‐phase economies, which explains their lesser capacity to generate direct investment. We found that these countries, which were less developed economies in the 1980s, had undergone a deep structural transformation. This transformation encouraged the multinationalization of firms, which is a differentiating element and one outcome of their development process. These results have clear policy implications: the governments of newly developed countries should take steps to increase the endowment of knowledge‐intensive assets. The main contribution of this paper is the theoretical reformulation of the fourth phase of the investment development path theory.     

Time-Varying Risk, Interest Rates, and Exchange Rates in General Equilibrium

Under mild assumptions, the data indicate that fluctuations in nominal interest rate differentials across currencies are primarily fluctuations in time-varying risk. This finding is an immediate implication of the fact that exchange rates are roughly random walks. If most fluctuations in interest differentials are thought to be driven by monetary policy, then the data call for a theory which explains how changes in monetary policy change risk. Here, we propose such a theory based on a general equilibrium monetary model with an endogenous source of risk variation—a variable degree of asset market segmentation.     

A comparison of produce prices in Costa Rica: farmers' markets,produce markets and supermarkets

Following a review of the history and organization of farmers' markets in Costa Rica, a comparison was made of prices offered to consumers at farmers' markets, produce markets and supermarkets in Costa Rica. Findings reveal there are substantial price savings to Costa Rican consumers that shop at local farmers' markets for fruit and vegetables compared to produce markets and supermarkets.