Why Country of Origin Still Matters in Food Retailing: Implications for Promotion Management Research

ABSTRACT

Despite considerable focus on the role of country image (CI) and country of origin (COO) in international marketing and consumer behavior research over the past fifty years, several meta-analyses suggest that knowledge of the impact on consumer decision-making is limited. Even though they are among the most commonly traded items, food products (have not received as much attention from researchers as other product categories (i.e. consumer electronics, cars, apparel and footwear). Further, most of the research that focuses on food was conducted prior to the introduction of mandatory labelling requirements in many major retail markets. This critical review contributes to the literature examining the role that this information plays in food retailing within the context of international trade in food. From this critical review, a research agenda is developed, highlighting several major avenues and methodological approaches with the aim of enhancing the relevance and validity of COO research in food retailing and promotion management.     

MCDA Framework for Fishing Rights Allocation in South Africa

The work discussed in this paper relates to the allocation of fishing rights within the Western Cape province of South Africa. Many of these fisheries are under threat through over-exploitation, and yet are a traditional source of livelihood in many communities. We describe a sequence of interventions during which principles and processes of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) formed the framework for structuring the problems, for facilitating group consensus on the decision making process, and for designing a decision support template for use in future allocations. Interactions with community representatives and with the the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism revealed a high degree of consistency in perceptions of the management goals that need to be taken into consideration. These goals could be structured and summarized in the form of an integrated value tree, which in turn formed the basis for a formalized decision support structure that could provide a transparent, coherent and auditable basis for the allocation of fishing rights in a fully goal-directed manner.     

The promises and constraints of consumer-directed healthcare

Consumer-directed healthcare promises to reduce costs and increase quality by expanding provider choice for prospective patients. High-deductible insurance, employer- or government-subsidized health savings accounts, transparent pricing, and accurate information on clinical performance help generate millions of patients shopping for healthcare. As in any other well-behaved market, when patients shop, there is a link between financial reward and value for the individual patient. Absence of price competition, agency problems, and high barriers to entry in local markets are market failures that currently break this link in U.S. healthcare. Consumer-directed health plans are already popular among many employers and have established a momentum that indirectly shapes discussion of reform by the Obama administration. Complexity of reporting clinical results, dependence of treatment success on at-home patient behavior, and scientific ignorance among consumers threaten delivery of results promised by theory. Successful implementation requires regulator attention to sophisticated data reporting that adjusts for clinical risk, avoidance of patient-focused marketing that leads to over-consumption, and adequate subsidy of health savings accounts. In the end, implementation shifts the locus of healthcare system control from cost-shifting negotiations between employers, providers, and payers to new-found purchasing power of prospective patients.     

The Incidence of the Land Use Regulatory Tax

Land use regulation has been found to impose a substantial tax on housing within select U.S. metropolitan areas. In this article, we develop hypotheses regarding the incidence of this tax by income class and racial group within these areas. Parcel‐level data from Miami‐Dade County, Florida, are used to test our hypotheses. We find that, while the tax rises with a household's permanent income, this rise is less than proportional, making it a regressive tax. We also find, controlling for household permanent income, that the tax is a higher percentage of the price of homes located in black neighborhoods in comparison to those located in white or Hispanic neighborhoods.     

On the Least Core and the Mas-Colell Bargaining Set

We show that the least core of a TU coalitional game with a finite set of players is contained in the Mas-Colell bargaining set. This result is extended to games with a measurable space of players in which the worth of the grand coalition is at least that of any other coalition in the game. As a consequence, we obtain an existence theorem for the Mas-Colell bargaining set in TU games with a measurable space of players. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C71.     

Is There a Better Way to Examine Income Inequality?

Dividing U.S. tax returns into half‐millionaires (those reporting adjusted gross income (AGI) of $500,000 or more in a given year) and their complement allows greater use of IRS data on income sources than is possible with an analysis that examines a fixed percentage of returns, such as the top one percent. Contrary to popular perception and media rhetoric, the inflation‐adjusted difference between the reported AGI of half‐millionaires and the rest actually declined by 25 percent from 1993 to 2011. The income gap between half‐millionaires and other filers reflects differences in kinds of income, with half‐millionaires deriving a much larger fraction of their income from capital investments whose varying returns make that component of income—and thus the income of half‐millionaires—more volatile. The percentage of total tax returns filed by half‐millionaires in a given year and the percentage of their income derived from taxable gains reported on Schedule D account for virtually all of the variation in the half‐millionaire percentage of aggregate AGI. As this finding suggests, the expanding income share for half‐millionaires does not signify that some collection of privileged rich have become richer. The significant net growth in the percentage of filers who are half‐millionaires has been uneven because a significant proportion of their income derives from volatile Schedule D gains, which are higher during economic expansions and lower during recessions. The incomes of half‐millionaires—and especially millionaires—are anything but recession proof. But even with that volatile component of income included, when their percentage of returns doubles, their percentage of income less than doubles, consistent with declining income inequality.     

World food markets into the 21st century: commodity risk management policies

Recent concerns about future global food production seem poorly based. The rapid phase of growth in food consumption is over for most of the world's population because of increased incomes and, besides, population growth rates continue to slow. Thus, the rate of growth of food production needed in the future is much lower than it has been for the past 40 years. Production and price instability will continue, perhaps with lessened intensity because of reduced government intervention. With private agricultural interests now facing greater exposure to price and production risks, especially in developing countries, there needs to be greater emphasis on financial market instruments for managing these risks.     

Decision Trees Versus Decision Tables for Audit Test Data Design: An Experimental Study*

Use of test data is an important evidence collection method that auditors can employ to evaluate the authenticity, accuracy, and completeness of program processing. Nevertheless, test data design is a time-consuming and error-prone process. To facilitate design, two approaches advocated are the decision-tree approach and the decision-table approach. An experiment conducted to examine the quality of test data designs produced using both approaches showed some support for the superiority of the decision-table approach over the decision-tree approach. Insofar as the results obtained are problematical, however, the research needs to be replicated and extended.