Adult equivalence scales and food expenditures: an application to Mexican beef and pork purchases

In the analysis of food expenditures, the use of a simple count of household members as an estimate of household size implicitly assumes each household member has the same marginal impact. In this analysis of Mexican food expenditures, endogenously determined adult equivalence scales are estimated in such a way that these marginal impacts are allowed to vary by household member age and gender. The results of a series of hypothesis tests indicate a rejection of the implied null hypothesis of equal marginal expenditure impacts associated with the use of the traditional count based household size variable. This study also rejects the null hypothesis of the equality of adult equivalent scales across the commodities included in this analysis.     

Application of local projections in the monetary policy in Brazil

This article examines the relationship between selected monetary aggregates and inflation and output in Brazil. Impulse responses under VAR and local projections were used to discover the leading or lagging role of the monetary aggregates. In addition, the information provided by the monetary aggregates as predictors of output and inflation was examined. This was assessed by examining their predictive power for subsequent observations on an in-sample basis. Overall, the results indicate that in order to control inflation rates, Brazilian authorities should focus on restricting money supply rather than increasing interest rates.     

Land use and economic effects of alternative biofuel policies in Brazil and the United States

Being the two largest ethanol producers in the world, biofuel policies in Brazil and the United States affect both their domestic markets and the global food and biofuel economy. In this article we develop a price endogenous mathematical programming model to simulate and analyze the impacts of biofuel mandates and trade distortions on land use, agricultural commodity and transportation fuel markets, and global environment. We find that an 80% increase in total biofuel production from its 103 billion liter baseline level to the mandated 183 billion liter level in 2022 can be achieved with less than 2% increase in total cropland use in both countries. In the United States, this would occur with cellulosic biofuels meeting nearly half of the biofuels consumed and produced largely on cropland pasture and corn ethanol meeting the rest of the mandate and resulting in a 2% increase in corn price. In Brazil, the expansion in sugarcane production would be achieved by reducing land under pasture and a marginal increase in intensification of livestock production. In the aggregate, biofuel policies increase economic surplus in both countries by 1% and redistribute the benefits from agricultural consumers to agricultural producers and the fuel sector. Finally, we also find that full implementation of the mandates in North America, China, and the European Union would reduce the global life‐cycle global greenhouse gas emissions by about 5%.     

A game theoretic analysis of interactions between law abiding citizens and criminals with respect to ownership of guns

In this paper, it is recognized that there are criminals and law abiding citizens in any society, and that their decisions to own guns are based on rather different, through interdependent, motives. These ideas are used as a conceptual basis for a game theoretic model which is used to analyze one isolated interaction and two forms of repeated interactions. The Nash equilibrium is the main results in the static form of the game. It is concluded from the analysis of the dynamic forms that this equilibrium in globally stable. The presentation proceeds to the study of possible consequences of direct and indirect policy interventions regulating the proportion of law abiding citizens and of criminals that own guns. The paper concludes with some observations on the model's limitations and some suggestions for its improvement.     

Risk aversion, moral hazard, and the principal's loss

Summary. In their seminal paper on the principal-agent model with moral hazard, Grossman and Hart (1983) show that if the agent's utility function is , then the loss to the principal from being unable to observe the agent's action is increasing in the agent's degree of absolute risk aversion. Their proof is restricted to the case where the number of observable outcomes is equal to two, and it uses an argument that is specific to that case. In this note, we provide an alternative proof that generalizes their result to any (finite) number of outcomes. Received: March 21, 2001; revised version: June 21, 2001     

The impact of COVID-19 on consumer evaluation of authentic advertising messages

This study investigates the relationship between the COVID-19 threat and consumer evaluation of a product with authenticity appeals in advertisements. We propose that threatening situations like COVID-19 motivate consumers to lower their uncertainty and increase their preference for products with authentic advertising messages. Because individuals react differently to threatening environments according to their early-life experiences, commonly reflected in childhood socioeconomic status, we examined whether childhood socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between threat and consumer evaluation of authenticity in advertisements. First, secondary data from Google Trends provided empirical support for our predictions. In additional experimental studies, participants evaluated different target products in four studies that either manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) or measured (Studies 4 and 5) COVID-19 threat. Our results provide converging evidence that consumers positively evaluate products with authentic advertising messages under the COVID-19 threat. Consumers' motivation to lower their uncertainty underlies the effect of COVID-19 threat on their evaluation of authentic messages (Study 3). This attempt to reduce uncertainty is more likely to occur for consumers with relatively higher childhood socioeconomic status (Studies 4 and 5). These findings suggest that using authenticity appeals during a pandemic could effectively reduce consumers' perceived uncertainty and generate positive consumer evaluations.     

A cross-cultural study of consumer complaining behavior: VCR owners in the U.S. and Puerto Rico

This study investigates differences in complaining behavior between American and Puerto Rican VCR owners. It is proposed that in Puerto Rico, both cultural values and institutional barriers tend to impose restrictions on complaining behavior that do not exist in the U.S. Hypotheses are developed concerning the impact of cultural differences on: (a) perceptual and attitudinal antecedents to complaining in Day's (1984) model of complaining behavior, (b) the propensity to complain, and (c) the use of public vs. private actions.Results of the data analysis indicate that Puerto Rican VCR owners are less likely to complain than American VCR owners. Also, among complainers, Puerto Ricans were found less likely to take public actions than Americans. Only weak support was obtained for the predicted differences on the antecedent variables to complaining. Implications for marketers and public policy makers are discussed.

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Ein interkultureller Vergleich des Beschwerdeverhaltens von Konsumenten: Besitzer von Videokassettenrecordern in den USA und in Puerto Rico

Zusammenfassung Die Studie geht davon aus, daß in Puerto Rico sowohl kulturelle Werthaltungen als auch insitutionelle Barrieren das Beschwerdeverhalten von Konsumenten stärker einschränken als in den USA. Diskutiert werden fünf hinderliche Wertorientierungen, nämlich Passivität, internale Attribution, Abhängigkeit, Vermeidung von Unsicherheit und Fatalismus. Mit institutionellen Barrieren werden Eigenschaften der Marketinginstitutionen gemeint, die direktes Beschwerdeverhalten abwehren. Offensichtlich sind Marketingabteilungen in Puerto Rico weniger empfänglich für kritische Meinungen von Konsumenten als vergleichbare Einrichtungen in den Vereinigten Staaten.Bei der Hypothesenbildung werden die Einflußfaktoren auf das Beschwerdeverhalten nach dem Modell von Day(1984) benutzt, die mit kulturellen Unterschieden variieren dürften. Diese Einflußfaktoren sind(a) die wahrgenommenen Kosten der Beschwerde, (b) die subjektiv empfundene Wahrscheinlichkeit, daß die Beschwerde Erfolg haben wird, und (c) die Einstellung gegenüber dem Beschweren als Verhaltensweise. Die empirischen Ergebnisse zeigen bei Puertoricanern tatsächlich eine geringere Tendenz zum Beschwerdeverhalten als bei Amerikanern, wenn auch im einzelnen nicht alle Hypothesen durch die Daten gestützt werden. Der Beitrag diskutiert Schlußfolgerungen sowohl für das Marketing wie auch für die Verbraucherpolitik. Die Anbieter sollten die Empfänglichkeit für Konsumentenbeschwerden in Puerto Rico erhöhen. Kommunikationspolitische Maßnahmen der Hersteller von Videokassettenrecordern sollten den Konsumenten in Puerto Rico deutlich machen, daß ihnen die Zufriedenheit der Kunden ein echtes Anliegen ist.Andererseits sollte die staatliche Einrichtung für Konsumentenangelegenheiten in Puerto Rico Erziehungsprogramme entwickeln mit dem Ziel, Konsumenten deutlich zu machen, daß Beschwerdeführung bei Produktmängeln ein angemessenes und wünschenswertes Verhalten ist. Ebenso sollte diese Einrichtung prüfen, ob neue gesetzgeberische Maßnahmen zum Verbraucherschutz notwendig sind.

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Sigfredo A. Hernandez and William Strahle are Assistant Professors of Marketing and Robert C. Sorensen is Professor of Marketing at Rider College, Lawrenceville Rd, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, USA. Hector L. Garcia is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Universidad del Turabo, P.O. Box 3030, University Station, Gurabo, PR 00658, USA.     

Quantitative analysis of the implementation of educational plans in Latin America

In this paper an index of plan implementation is defined and applied to the 1960–1970 educational plans of Latin American countries. Statistical analysis is used to specify the determinants of the values of the index. It is shown that a lack of statistical data and of qualified personnel are the main reasons for insufficient plan implementation.