Determinants of Consumer Behavioral Intention Toward Social Farm Food

The study authors investigate consumer reactivity to social and health concerns, social farm food’s perceived quality, and whether these attitudes can be expected to influence their behavioral intention with regard to these products. Data were collect on a convenience sample (N?=?361) via a questionnaire. Five hypotheses, concerning the relationships between social consciousness, health consciousness, social farm food perceived quality, and consumer behavioral intention, were tested via a structural equation model. The results indicate that both social consciousness and health consciousness have a positive impact on social farm food perceived quality. Consumer behavioral intention is directly influenced only by health consciousness but indirectly by both social and health consciousness, via the attribute of social farm food perceived quality. The findings depict a particular reactivity of potential consumers. The study provides a general outline of questions or studies that might be useful in the future.     

Enhancing Arthur Andersen business ethics vignettes: Group discussions using cooperative/collaborative learning techniques

Arthur Anderson & Co. has made a significant contribution to assist and encourage the teaching of business ethics. They provided assistance initially through workshops and curriculum materials; currently they are using campus coordinators to disseminate information and materials. The curriculum materials can be used by the instructor to assist students in practicing their moral reasoning skills and cover four academic areas: Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and Management. These materials include business ethics video vignettes, suggestions on presentation methods, guidelines for implementing a stakeholders' analysis approach to ethical reasoning, and possible discussion questions. The vignettes present ethical dilemmas that persons may encounter in entry level positions. We have used the vignettes, the accompanying discussion questions, and the suggested stakeholder analysis in class presentations. This paper presents a discussion of the basic concepts associated with cooperative learning, an example of the implementation of cooperative learning techniques using the Arthur Andersen Accounting Ethics Vignettes, and empirical results of the influence of these particular group discussions on the students' ethical responses. We did not attempt to measure whether the individuals' moral levels changed, but whether the group discussions stimulated any changes in the students attitudes toward the particular ethical dilemma they viewed.Lucia E. Peek is Associate Professor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. She has published articles inAuditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, Public Personnel Management, Management Accounting, Illinois Issues, The Accounting Instructor's Report, andThe Bulletin of the Association for Business Communication.George S. Peek is Associate Professor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. He has published articles inManagement Accounting, Kent/Bentley Journal of Computers and Accounting, The Accounting Instructor's Report, The Bulletin of the Association for Business Communication, Journal of Education for Business, andComputers in Composition.Mary Horras is Instructor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. In 1991 she was awarded the Arthur Andersen/Richard E. Claire Faculty Development Award for Outstanding Beta Alpha Psi Faculty Advisor. She has published an article in theCollege Student Journal.     

Does ICT adoption improve access to credit for small enterprises?

Using data at the bank–firm level collected through the 9th UniCredit Survey conducted in 2012 on a large sample of small businesses, we investigate the extent to which a large international bank offers better credit conditions to enterprises that use ICT more extensively. The results, which are robust to selection and endogeneity issues, show that banks tend to grant increasing volumes of credit to such enterprises. We interpret this evidence as the ceteris paribus effect of ICT adoption by small businesses on the quality of information transmitted to banks. Another possible interpretation is that banks consider ICT adoption as a signal of firms’ willingness to innovate. We also discuss implications concerning the key role that technology plays in changing the ‘arm’s length’ versus ‘relationship’ lending paradigms.     

Deregulated Wholesale Electricity Prices in Italy: An Empirical Analysis

In this paper we analyze a time series of daily average prices in the Italian electricity market, which started to operate as a Pool in April 2004. Our objective is to model the high degree of autocorrelation and the multiple seasonalities in electricity prices. We use periodic time series models with GARCH disturbances and leptokurtic distributions and compare their performance with more classical ARMA-GARCH processes. The within-year seasonal variation is modelled using the low-frequency components of physical quantities, which are very regular throughout the sample. Our results reveal that much of the variability in the price series is explained by the interactions between deterministic multiple seasonalities. Periodic AR-GARCH models seem to perform quite well in mimicking the features of the stochastic part of the price process.

The South African disability grant: Influence on HIV treatment outcomes and household well-being in KwaZulu-Natal

This paper explores the implications of the disability grant for household members' well-being and adults' success on ART (antiretroviral therapy). It uses case studies based on data from an in-depth qualitative study of 10 households in KwaZulu-Natal. Receipt of the disability grant ensured that the basic needs of the HIV-infected adult could be met by other household members, especially when the grant was received when the person first met the qualifying criteria and in conjunction with ART. Where treatment was effective, HIV-infected adults were able to make substantial contributions to the well-being of other members in addition to the financial support provided by the grant itself. Thus, early access to financial support in conjunction with commencing ART may lead to improved health outcomes and reduce poverty and vulnerability associated with illness in poor households. This synergistic relationship between social welfare and treatment may in turn contribute to greater cost-efficiency.     

On policymakers’ loss functions and the evaluation of early warning systems: Comment

Sarlin (2013) suggests that if a loss function approach is chosen to derive the optimal threshold for financial crisis early warning indicators, the loss function specification should explicitly take into account the unconditional sample crisis probability. In this comment we argue that this approach is not robust to small perturbations of the preference parameter and is not easy to use for policy purposes. We suggest therefore to continue using a simpler loss function specification.     

Poverty,disputes, and access to justice in two Indonesian provinces

This analysis explores the determinants behind the unequal access to justice services among poor Indonesians. The study analyzes the stock of observed past disputes by socioeconomic group and the demand for conflict resolution services for unresolved conflicts or “trajectories.” It also models the hypothetical demand of justice services for future disputes. Results suggest that unequal access to justice might go beyond the financial costs of seeking justice and also depends on individual preferences and community infrastructure. These findings warn against focusing exclusively on formal justice costs to improve the equal access of the poor to conflict resolution services.     

Behavioral Economics and Public Opinion

On the basis of data from many nations, our forthcoming book asks and answers a question pressing in democratic and nondemocratic nations alike: What do citizens actually think about behaviorally informed policies?     

Adaptation to Climate Change: Commitment and Timing Issues

We study the impact of timing and commitment on adaptation and mitigation policies in the context of international environmental problems. Adaptation policies present the characteristics of a private good and may require a prior investment, while mitigation policies produce a public good. In a stylized model, we evaluate the impact of strategic commitment and leadership considerations when countries with different attitudes towards environmental cooperation coexist. We obtain equilibrium abatement and adaptation levels and environmental costs under partial cooperation for various timing and leadership scenarios. Crucially, global environmental costs suffered by countries are found to be greater when adaptation measures can be used strategically.