Do environmental attitudes and food technology neophobia affect perceptions of the benefits of nanotechnology?

In recent years, a significant amount of research has focussed on the analysis of consumers' aversion to new technologies in food production and processing. At the same time, research has shown that environmental attitudes may be related to purchasing behaviour of consumers. This paper presents the result of an investigation into Canadian attitudes towards nanotechnology, in general, and in applications in the food industry. The relationship between the food technology neophobia scale, environmental attitudes and nanotechnology is examined. The results suggest that food technology neophobia is significant in explaining attitudes towards nanotechnology, in general, and for food packaging and foods. Environmental attitudes are important in explaining respondents' attitudes towards nanotechnology in general but not in explaining attitudes towards nanotechnology in food packaging or food applications. Survey respondents' views of the role of science and technology in society (makes society worse or better off) are a more important determinant of attitudes towards nanotechnology than whether they had heard of nanotechnology prior to the survey.     

Simple versus rich language in disclosure games

This paper studies strategic information disclosure when the sender may not observe the payoff-relevant state, and the receiver may interpret messages naively. We characterize equilibria as a function of the language available to the sender. The language is simple if an informed sender can either fully disclose the state or nothing. The language is rich if he can disclose any closed interval containing the true state. We show that an informed sender and a strategic receiver get a higher ex-ante equilibrium payoff when the language is rich. The reverse holds for a naive receiver and an uninformed sender. Overall, our work suggests that the design of language is key in situations where disclosure is voluntary.     

Human Capital Intangibles and Performance of Franchise Networks: A Complementary View between Agency and Critical Resource Perspectives

This article examines the impact of human capital intangibles on the governance structure of franchise networks (i.e., proportion of franchised outlets) and the joint impact of human capital intangibles and governance on the performance of franchisors. Agency theory focuses on the free‐riding hazard and the costs associated with franchising in the context of high human capital intangibles. The critical resources theory highlights the weakness of company ownership and the advantages of using franchising in this context. Tests of the hypotheses derived from these theoretical frameworks indicate that these complementarily explain the governance structure and financial performance of franchise networks. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Everything All Right at the Internal EU Borders? The Ambivalent Effects of Cross-Border Integration and the Rise of Euroscepticism

ABSTRACT

The policy of the European Union, which promotes a vision of Europe without borders and has fostered the development of cooperation across borders over 25 years, has led, in some parts of Europe, to the emergence of so-called integrated cross-border regions. Thus far, the increase of cross-border flows and interactions has always been a normative and almost unquestioned policy paradigm. However, tendencies of re-bordering and signs of growing Euroscepticism can also be observed nowadays in these border regions, which show the importance of investigating the negative externalities that can be generated by cross-border integration. This article attempts to do this by focusing on three case studies usually considered as among the most integrated ones in Europe because of cross-border flows related to work: the cross-border metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Luxembourg. Our findings show that if several decades of cross-border integration have led to the reinforcement of the functional linkages between the border regions, some effects of the cross-border integration process have also created a functional specialisation of space that relies on social and economic inequalities. Such a situation contradicts the ideal of cross-border territorial cohesion and helps to better understand the rise of Euroscepticism in some of the border areas.     

Impact is not just volatility

With a simple scaling argument we show empirically that impact growing as the square-root of trading volume has nothing to do with diffusion price changes growing as the square root of time     

A Comparison of Construction Contract Prices for Traditionally Procured Roads and Public–Private Partnerships

Theoretical literature suggests higher asset construction costs in a public-private partnership (PPP) than in traditional public procurement, due to the bundling of construction and operation and the transfer of construction risk, among other factors. Data on ex ante road construction prices in Europe suggest a PPP road to be 24% more expensive than a traditionally procured road, ceteris paribus. This estimate resembles reported ex post cost overruns in traditionally procured roads. Thus, the public sector seems to pay a premium on ex ante PPP construction contract prices mostly to cover construction risk transfer. Other reported sources of higher PPP road construction costs, including bundling, seem on average of lesser importance.     

Global migration in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the unstoppable force of demography

Review of World Economics - This paper sheds light on the global migration patterns of the past 40 years, and produces migration projections for the 21st century. To do this, we build a simple...     

Stakeholder views on issues to consider when assessing the sustainability of genetically modified potato

The importance of assessing socio-economic and sustainability aspects of genetically modified (GM) crops is increasingly recognized by policy-makers, both within the EU and internationally. Nevertheless, experience has shown that it is challenging to assess and implement these aspects in actual decision-making processes. This paper argues that stakeholder engagement may provide valuable insights when developing frameworks for sustainability assessment of GM crops. We organized two stakeholder workshops with the aim to gather perspectives on the sustainability of cultivating late blight resistant (LBR) GM potato in Norway. Sixteen Norwegian stakeholders involved in potato production and in agriculture in general took part in the workshops. Here, we present and discuss the outcomes of this participatory approach. The stakeholders identified several conditions that an LBR GM potato ought to satisfy in order to contribute to sustainable development. These conditions concerned environmental and health safety aspects of cultivating LBR GM potato, potential for fungicide reductions, durability of the LBR GM potato plant's resistance, farmers' profitability and consumer acceptance. In addition, the stakeholders considered issues such as maintenance of a diversity of potato cultivars, transparency during product development and risk assessment processes, ownership and control and opportunity for independent risk research as important considerations in a sustainability assessment. While focusing on a specific application of agricultural biotechnology, we believe that these findings are useful contributions to the ongoing efforts to develop frameworks and guidelines for assessing sustainability and socio-economic considerations of GM crops in general.