Question order effects in taste testing of beverages

The effect of order position has been demonstrated in marketing research, sometimes compromising survey results. This paper studies the influence of order position in product taste trials of carbonated beverages using a sequential monadic design. The authors measure attitude ratings across product trials rather than across products to examine the effect of order position on preference ratings.     

A resilience-based framework for evaluating adaptive co-management: Linking ecology, economics and society in a complex world

Adaptive co-management brings together collaborative and adaptive approaches in pursuit of sustainable resource use and social-ecological resilience. Enthusiasm for this management approach, however, is countered by recent critiques regarding outcomes. A lack of evidence from consistent evaluation of adaptive co-management further exacerbates this situation. This paper revisits the issue of evaluation in natural resource management and recasts it in light of complex adaptive systems thinking. An evaluative framework for adaptive co-management is developed which directs attention toward three broad components: ecosystem conditions, livelihood outcomes and process and institutional conditions. Scale-specific parameters are offered for each component to facilitate systematic learning from experience and encourage cross-site comparisons. Conclusions highlight the importance of systematically incorporating evaluation into the adaptive co-management process and recognize the challenge for resource agencies and researchers to shift from a conventional to a complex adaptive system perspective.     

Reinterpreting the performance of immigrant wages from panel data

Immigrants differ from the native born in terms of unobserved factors, such as motivation, and observed factors, including those related to the interruption of labour market activity and earning capacity, which may bias estimates of immigrant integration. Using panel data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, we show that using potential experience, rather than actual experience, exaggerates estimates of the disruption and recovery caused by immigration. More importantly, we find support for omitted variables bias, arising from unobserved fixed effects. Instrumental variable estimates for both pooled and separate samples of immigrant and native born men demonstrate a wage disadvantage for immigrants upon entry that persists through their lifetime. Standard estimates of a modest wage advantage for the children of immigrants also suffer from omitted variables bias arising from unobservables. Contrary to most of the literature to date, our instrumental variable estimates which allow for unobservable fixed effects suggest that immigrants never catch up to otherwise comparable native born workers, but their children do just as well. We would like to thank Statistics Canada for permitting access to the data and solving associated technical problems, the Prairier Centre for Research on Immigration and Integration for financial assistance, and Peter Schnabl for excellent research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 10th International Conference on Panel Data in Berlin, July 5–6, 2002. The authors take sole responsibility for errors, omissions and interpretation of the data.     

Workplace bargaining in hospitals and schools: threat or opportunity for the unions?

Government policy has aimed to encourage the development of workplace bargaining in both the education and health services. This article traces those developments and looks at trade union opposition to the shift from national to workplace bargaining     

Can the academic literature contribute to the debate over mandatory audit firm rotation?

Recently, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued a concept release soliciting public recommendations to improve auditor independence and audit quality (PCAOB, 2011). The focus of the release is on mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) with a request for commentaries addressing the advantages and disadvantages of MAFR. In this paper, we briefly summarize the recent literature on mandatory audit firm rotation and suggest how it can be useful to regulators as they consider the implementation of mandatory rotation. We find that the conclusions reached about the possible effectiveness of MAFR appear to depend on the type of data used (voluntary vs. mandatory auditor changes), suggesting that regulators should exercise care when drawing inferences from past audit firm rotation research.     

Competition in Canada's Agricultural Value Chains: The Case of Grain

To open this address, I would like to advocate for membership in the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society (CAES). The fact that applied economics offers theory and methods that help us address topics as diverse as the Canadian grain value chain and the economics of species at risk speaks well for the future of our discipline. There is a vast array of work for us to do. Membership in the CAES offers an excellent link to the most up‐to‐date research in this area through our journal and conferences. Every society I attend inspires me to examine my own research and look at problems in new ways using new tools I learned from presentations made by the members of CAES. The main message of my address is to promote the application of Game Theory strategies as a way to understand behavior in the grain value chain. These tools are already being applied in areas as different as optimizing tradable systems of environmental goods and assessing competitive behavior in beef packing. Tout d'abord, je tiens à mentionner que j'appuie l'adhésion à la Société canadienne d'agroéconomie (SCAE). Le fait que l’économie appliquée offre la théorie et les méthodes qui nous aident à examiner des sujets aussi variés que la chaîne de valeur des grains du Canada et l’économie des espèces en péril augure bien pour l'avenir de notre discipline. La diversité du travail à accomplir est immense. Être membre de la SCAE procure un lien privilégié à la recherche de pointe grâce à notre Revue et à nos conférences. Aujourd'hui, mon message vise principalement à promouvoir l'application des stratégies de la théorie des jeux pour comprendre le comportement au sein de la chaîne de valeur des grains. Certains domaines, tels que l'optimisation des systèmes d’échange des biens environnementaux et l’évaluation du comportement concurrentiel dans le secteur du conditionnement du b?uf, utilisent déjà ces outils. La panoplie d'outils à notre disposition est mise en valeur dans notre Revue et lors de nos congrès. Tous les congrès auxquels j'assiste me motivent à examiner ma propre recherche et à analyser les problèmes sous un angle différent grâce aux nouveaux outils mis au point et présentés par les membres de la SCAE.     

The influence of demand and supply side pressures on the quantity and quality of inventive activity

This article arguments the literature on the demand for professional team sports by estimating a demand function for attendance at home matches in the Malaysian Semi-Pro Football League (MSPFL) between 1989 and 1991. A single-equation demand (attendance) function based on a pooled cross-section and time-series panel data set of 399 games is estimated by ordinary least squares, a fixed effects dummy variable covariance model and an error components model. Our findings confirm the importance of market size and championship prospects for the home team (but not the visiting team), as well as divisional status and ‘star’ players. The first match of the season and derby matches also increased attendance.     

The impact of cash transfers on household welfare in Namibia

Namibia has a long history of providing a universal and non-contributory old age pension, child grants using means testing and quasi-conditionalities, and other cash transfers. Multivariate analysis presented in this paper confirms that these transfers play an important role in alleviating poverty, especially for the very poor. The poverty-reducing effects of the child grants are likely to increase further as access is being rapidly expanded. However, the impact in terms of reducing Namibia's extremely high inequality is limited. The targeting of the cash transfers towards the poorest groups takes place through two main channels. For the child grant, targeting occurs as a result of the orphan status eligibility criteria, as orphans are over-represented in lower-income households. For the universal social pension, it appears that some of the relatively less poor do not receive it even if they are eligible. Means testing of child grants appears ineffective, even without considering administrative costs.     

Institutional Pressures and an Evolving Forest Carbon Market

It is estimated that 87 million acres of forestland in the United States (US) is managed by private industrial forestland owners (nearly 14% of the forestland nationwide). Private industrial forestland owners include forest product companies, Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Current regulatory and voluntary carbon markets, as well as proposed national emission reduction legislation, in the US make provisions for substantial carbon offsets from domestic forestry projects. This research employs the theory of planned behavior by means of an online questionnaire in order to survey large industrial forestland owners (>30 000 acres) regarding intentions to manage forestland for carbon sequestration and trading. Quantitative results suggest that very few organizations (18%) were managing forestland for carbon values. Attitudes towards carbon sequestration and trading were significantly influenced by the managers' beliefs that emission reduction legislation would become law and that US forest carbon offsets can be used as a legitimate climate change mitigation tool. Qualitative results revealed that most organizations are taking a passive approach to carbon sequestration and trading until a suitable regulatory framework emerges and carbon prices provide the conditions for a sound investment. The researchers suggest that, given the size and scope of the climate change phenomenon as well as the multifaceted and unified mitigation strategy required to address it, the development of functional carbon markets will be an iterative process and may require a global carbon framework that reflects the globalized nature of the forest economy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment