Why consumers under-use food quantity indicators

Recent UK research suggests that the majority of consumers fail to utilize unit prices or quantity indications when purchasing pre-packaged foodstuffs. This failure reduces their ability to identify optimal purchases and to protect themselves against oversized packaging, product downsizing and quantity surcharges. Previous work on quantity has been non-UK based (e.g. Wansink 1996), suffered from methodological flaws and/ or lacked specific focus on quantity.This research investigates why quantity indications are not utilized and adopts a more comprehensive multi-method approach using accompanied shopping interviews, simulated tasks (n = 230) and an in-store questionnaire (n = 1000). The results show consumers are: generally unaware of quantity indicators; confused because they are overloaded with product information; unable to process the volume and diversity of the quantity information generated by large numbers of products and brands; unwilling to make the effort to make comparisons; do not understand different measurement systems, quantity terms and expressions; do not care about small quantity differences; use package size or tactile weight instead; believe that the law protects them sufficiently; do not have time to make comparisons; are unable to locate and assimilate unclear quantity information. The results raise important consumer education issues and implications for retailers relating to clearer and more consistent quantity indicators.     

General‐interest versus specialty journals: Using intellectual influence of econometrics research to rank economics journals and articles

This paper demonstrates the potential problem in using existing economics journal rankings to evaluate the research productivity of scholars by constructing a new ranking of economics journals and articles. Based on 2142 econometrics sample articles published from 2000 to 2005, our ranking results show that the intellectual influence of an econometrics article published in several econometrics/statistics journals is much higher than if it were published in the most prestigious general‐interest journal. Given that a study's potential influence is integrated into the submission decision, this suggests a substantial downward bias toward econometricians when existing rankings are used to evaluate their research productivity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DOES FEDERAL FUNDING “CROWD IN” PRIVATE FUNDING OF SCIENCE?

Proposed cutbacks in government science funding have caused many to expect that the rate of scientific progress will significantly decline. Before the magnitude of the decline can be estimated, a preliminary question must be answered: what is the extent to which private funding of science may be expected to fill the gap left by the declining government funding? Using data on government and private funding of science, preliminary estimation indicates that past government funding of science has not “crowded out” private funding of science. If this finding is supported by further research, it would indicate that private funding could not be expected to replace lost federal funding of science. (JEL H4, HI, 03, D6, L3)     

Equity Valuation Effects of the Pension Protection Act of 2006*

We investigate the equity valuation effects of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA 2006). The PPA 2006 has two main provisions: (1) firms must fully fund their pension plans within seven years (previously allowed 30 years to fund 90 percent of the pension liability) and (2) firms receive a tax deduction for contributions up to 150 percent of the pension liability (previously 100 percent). After controlling for the effects of SFAS 158, growth opportunities, the cost of external funds, and other information released during our sample period, we examine pension firms’ abnormal returns surrounding key dates in the legislative process leading to the adoption of the PPA 2006. First, we find a mean negative abnormal return of ?4.20 percent during the period in which the PPA 2006 was first voted on by Congress. The mean (median) firm in our sample experienced a $310 million ($60 million) decline in market capitalization. Second, we find that the valuation effect was more negative for firms with larger unfunded pension liabilities and larger capital expenditure requirements, while firms with higher marginal tax rates experienced a positive effect. Third, we find no evidence of differential valuation effects for firms in different “at risk” categories as defined by the PPA 2006. Finally, we find a significant number of pension freezes occurred during our sample period. Our results are stronger when excluding these firms from our sample.     

Smoking Behavior,Information Sources,and Consumption Values of Teenagers: Implications for Public Policy and Other Intervention Failures

This paper uses a hierarchical decision process model, uses of information, and a theory of consumption values as a strategic framework for evaluating the general failure of intervention strategies for teenage smoking initiation. Extremely high smoking consideration-to-trial rates and rapid cessation by occasional smokers provide narrow but unused strategic opportunities for intervention. Use of information sources varies by stage of model with interpersonal sources dominating consideration, trial, and cessation stages and mass media showing only a slightly increasing use in cessation compared to the earlier stages. The decision process model and consumption values are necessary for planning strategic interventions. Existing intervention programs are not appropriately targeted in the decision process. Programs should be developed to reduce the smoking consideration to trial rates in younger children and to encourage rapid cessation in older teenagers. The use of either print or broadcast mass media intervention programs is not supported.     

ASSESSING THE IMPACTS OF LABOR MARKET AND DETERRENCE VARIABLES ON CRIME RATES IN MEXICO

Many studies examine the relationship between crime rates and various economic and/or sociodemographic variables in high income countries, but similar efforts for middle and low income countries are less common. Utilizing an 8‐year panel data sample for all 32 states in Mexico, this study assesses the impact of Mexican labor market and deterrence variables on various Mexican crime rates. The principal results indicate that: (1) State gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has ambiguous effect on crime rates under different conditions. Both wages and unemployment rates are negatively linked with crime rates. (2) Although the Mexican judicial and public security systems are widely believed to be ineffective, increased federal police forces and incarceration rates are associated with lower crime rates, but higher public security expenditure per capita is associated with higher crime rates. (3) The impacts from labor market and deterrence variables presented in (1) and (2) continue to hold under the Fox administration as well as for non‐border states. Their respective impacts diminish, however, under the Calderon administration as well as for border states because of the small number of observations. Overall, the results indicate that increasing average wages, federal police forces, and incarceration rates would have significant impacts on reducing crime rates in Mexican states. (JEL O54, K42)     

Some Results in the Theory of Arbitrage Pricing

This paper derives a stronger version of Huberman's recent “preference free” pricing theorem. This pricing result relates the expected return on an asset to its factor responses and the covariance structure of the residuals from a linear factor model. It must characterize any infinite asset economy in which no arbitrage opportunities are present whether or not the factor model has uncorrelated residuals. This result provides the intuition for the role of residual risk in the pricing model and eliminates some classes of arbitrage opportunities still present under Huberman's bound. Some applications to empirical tests and performance measurement are also discussed.     

Unconditional and conditional takeover offers: experimental evidence

This article compares the predictions of finite-shareholdermodels of conditional and unconditional takeover offers withthe outcomes of laboratory experiments. In addition to differentiatingbetween types of offers, the experimental designs span smalland large firms as well as different levels of offer premiums.It is found that in unconditional offers to large groups ofsubjects (28-40), the symmetric Nash equilibrium predicts observedtendering frequencies quite accurately. For other experimentaldesigns, the results are mixed. The analysis of shareholdertendering strategies from the experiment yields insights into(I) the effects of takeover offer designs, (ii) the appropriatenessof finite-shareholder models for research, and (iii) the costsof free riding when shareholders are nonatomistic.     

Downsizing Effects on Survivors: Layoffs,Offshoring, and Outsourcing

In a representative sample of 13,683 U.S. employees, we compared survivors of layoffs, offshoring, outsourcing, and their combinations to a group who experienced no downsizing. Survivors of layoffs perceived lower organizational performance, job security, affective attachment, calculative attachment, and had higher turnover intentions. Offshoring survivors perceived lower performance, fairness, and affective attachment, but outsourcing survivors generally did not have more negative outcomes than the no‐downsizing group. Layoffs generally had more negative outcomes than other downsizing forms.