Are Agricultural Values a Reliable Guide in Determining Landowners' Decisions to Create Forest Carbon Sinks?

This research examines the effects of various factors on farmer participation in agricultural tree plantations for economic, environmental, social, and carbon‐uptake purposes, and potential costs of sequestering carbon through afforestation in western Canada. Using data from a survey of landowners, a discrete choice random utility model is used to determine the probability of landowners' participation in and corresponding mean willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for a tree‐planting program. WTA includes positive and negative benefits to landowners from planting trees, benefits not captured by foregone returns from agricultural activities on marginal land. Estimates of WTA are less than foregone returns, but even so average costs of creating carbon credits still exceed their projected value under a CO₂‐emissions trading scheme. La présente étude a examiné les effets de divers facteurs sur la participation des producteurs agricoles à la plantation d'arbres à des fins économiques, environnementales, sociales et d'absorption du gaz carbonique, ainsi que les coûts potentiels de la séquestration du carbone au moyen du boisement dans l'Ouest canadien. À l'aide des données d'un sondage effectué auprès de propriétaires fonciers, nous avons utilisé un modèle d'utilité aléatoire à choix discrets pour déterminer la probabilité de participation des propriétaires fonciers à un programme de boisement et leur consentement à recevoir (CAR) une compensation financière pour leur participation. Le CAR inclut les avantages favorables et défavorables que le boisement procure aux propriétaires fonciers, des avantages non saisis par les revenus sacrifiés des activités agricoles sur des terres marginales. Les estimations du CAR sont inférieures aux revenus sacrifiés, mais malgré tout, les coûts moyens de la mise en uvre de programme de crédits pour le carbone demeurent supérieurs à leur valeur prévue dans un scénario d'échange de droits d'émission de CO₂.     

Communicating nutrition information at the point of purchase: An eye‐tracking study of shoppers at two grocery stores in the United States

Providing nutrition information at the point of purchase is one approach that can be used to help consumers adopt and maintain a healthy diet. Previous research has examined consumer self‐reported notice and use of the information as well as how the design of the information affects its attention and use in a laboratory environment using eye‐tracking methodology. This study advances the literature by applying eye‐tracking methodology to explore consumer visual and choice behavior in a real shopping environment, and by recognizing that nutrition information competes with other visual stimuli in the store and consumers are vulnerable to a “limited attention span” for nutrition information in a shopping setting. Data came from a cross‐sectional survey conducted in two grocery stores in the United States in July 2014 with a convenience sample of 60 grocery shoppers while they were selecting and buying items from one of three product categories (ready‐to‐eat cereal, snacks, and soup). The study finds that point‐of‐purchase nutrition information faced strong competition for participants’ attention from other visual elements in a real shopping environment and the attention is dominated by nonnutrition elements, particularly brand/product name, product imagery, and product pricing. Nutrition‐related information, on the other hand, received much less attention, with claims and front‐of‐package nutrition symbols seen by more participants than the Nutrition Facts label. The study suggests that to more effectively enable nutrition information to “catch the eyes” of shoppers at the point of purchase, increasing consumer exposure to the information and enhancing shopper education may merit further investigation.     

Unravelling the JPMorgan spoofing case using particle physics visualization methods

On 29 September 2020, JPMorgan was ordered to pay a settlement of $920.2 million for spoofing the metals and Treasury futures markets from 2008 to 2016. We examine these cases using a visualization method developed in particle physics (CERN) and the messages that the exchange receives about market activity rather than time-based snapshots. This approach allows to examine multiple indicators related to market manipulation and complement existing research methods, thereby enhancing the identification and understanding of, as well as the motivation for, market manipulation. In the JPMorgan cases, we offer an alternative motivation for spoofing than moving the price.