Assessment of energy intake: Estimates of food supply v measurement of food consumption

National consumption indicators are frequently compiled using food supply estimates in the absence of reliable household or individual intake data. The authors examine the relationship between these three levels of information and in particular, the potential ‘losses’ of energy in the food system, comparing data from different countries and over time. They demonstrate the unreliability of supply estimates as proxy indicators of consumption and question their current usage in statements about global hunger and the links between health and food intake.     

Utility Representation of an Incomplete Preference Relation

We consider the problem of representing a (possibly) incomplete preference relation by means of a vector-valued utility function. Continuous and semicontinuous representation results are reported in the case of preference relations that are, in a sense, not “too incomplete.” These results generalize some of the classical utility representation theorems of the theory of individual choice and paves the way towards developing a consumer theory that realistically allows individuals to exhibit some “indecisiveness” on occasion. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D11.     

Assessing preferences for mega sports event travel products: a choice experimental approach

Hosting mega sports events spreads positive destination images and generates massive tourism arrivals for the host communities. It is, therefore, important for tourism businesses to better understand what types of travel products, tailored for particular mega sports events, are purchased by sport tourists. Using a choice experimental approach, this study aims to examine how sport tourists formulate their preferences for travel products customized for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games by making intricate trade-offs among various product attributes. We utilize a gender perspective to further understand the preference dynamics embedded in segmented sport tourism markets. Study results suggest that sport tourists put distinctive weights on each of the attributes comprising the Olympic travel products. Gender differences are also identified in sport tourists’ choice decisions for sports event travel products. Based on the study findings, this paper proposes several marketing strategies to meet the needs of targeted market segments.     

The antecedent role of customer-to-employee relationships in the development of customer-to-firm relationships

In this study, a customer-to-employee (C–E) relationship construct is employed to test the antecedent role of C–E relationships in the development of customer-to-firm relationships. The authors propose a conceptual model of the relationships that are hypothesized to exist among the constructs of ‘rapport’, ‘relational benefits’, ‘affective commitment’, and ‘dedicational behaviours’ of customers with respect to full-service restaurants. This study demonstrates that rapport has a positive influence on customers' perceptions of relational benefits and that rapport and enhanced perceptions of relational benefits induce customers to develop affective commitment and form intentions to engage in dedicational behaviours towards restaurants.     

A Model of Procedural Decision Making in the Presence of Risk*

We introduce a procedural model of risky choice in which an individual is endowed with a core preference relation that may be highly incomplete. She can, however, derive further rankings of alternatives from her core preferences by means of a procedure based on the independence axiom. We find that the preferences that are generated from an initial set of rankings according to this procedure can be represented by means of a set of von Neumann–Morgenstern utility functions, thereby allowing for incompleteness of preference relations. The proposed theory also yields new characterizations of the stochastic dominance orderings.