Quality Factors Influencing Consumer Demand for Small Fruit by Focus Group and Sensory Test

ABSTRACT

The market of berries is a niche of high value in Italy. Small fruit’s healthy properties are well known in the international market, but little is known about the reason for a low commercialization rate of fresh small fruit in Italy. The objective of this study was to assess consumer preferences in Italy for selected berry species. Moreover, the study aims to identify the relevant attributes of berries that affect the demand for this produce according to consumers and to compare these attributes. We assessed relevant attributes affecting the demand for fresh berries for different consumers’ profiles and compared berries’ attributes rankings. The results reveal high concordance between blackberries and raspberries; price is the attribute that constrains more purchases because it is deemed too high. Consumers prefer small fruit because of the rising interest in their nutraceutical value, and they have a higher willingness to pay because of this important attribute.     

Energy, property, and the industrial revolution narrative

The Industrial Revolution (IR) story is the core of a mainstream economic history narrative of energy/development relationships, celebrating Modern Economic Growth (MEG) as the increase in per capita energy consumption in the last two centuries. Such a narrative emphasizes mineral technology and private property as the key elements of growth processes. I will criticize the above narrative, from a socio-environmental history perspective, for its inability to account for two crucial aspects of energy history: 1. the role of social power as key determinant in how energy sources are used and to what ends; 2. the socio-ecological costs associated with the increase of energy consumption. I will then review Environmental History studies on energy/industrialization and highlight possible future developments in the field. The article makes a strong point for the need to look at energy transitions as social processes, and to include the unequal distribution of environmental, health, and social costs of mineral energy into global history narratives.     

THE UNEQUALIZING EFFECTS OF ICT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH

We analyse the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) on levels and growth of per capita GDP in two different ways: (1) by treating ICT as a specific type of physical capital and as a variable that helps to correct for quality existing physical capital measures, and (2) by considering that telephone lines, personal computers and internet hosts are ‘bottleneck‐reducing’ factors that increase the productivity of labour by making easier the diffusion and processing of (non‐rivalrous and almost non‐excludable) knowledge. We compare the relative significance of the two hypotheses in level and growth estimates and find that, when separately taken, both of them improve upon the classical Mankiw et al. (Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 107 (1992), pp. 407–437)/Islam (Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 110 (1995), pp. 1127–1169) framework. These findings show that our approach captures dimensions of time‐varying country‐specific technological progress that previous approaches in the literature did not take into account.     

Knowledge Intensity and Knowledge Bases in Internationalization Patterns of SMEs in the Food Sector

This article seeks to enhance understanding of the link between knowledge resources and internationalization patterns of small and medium-size enterprises in the food sector. Knowledge resources are described using the concepts of knowledge intensity and knowledge bases. The study is exploratory and is based on 6 Italian case studies. Four research questions (RQs) are formulated and several considerations are provided. The originality of this article consists of suggesting a framework by combining knowledge intensity and knowledge bases dimensions. Such concepts have not been previously combined and applied in the internationalization literature, neither in general nor about the food sector.     

Bank credit constraints for women‐led SMEs: Self‐restraint or lender bias?

We test the existence of possible gender biases affecting firm behavior in demanding and obtaining bank credit using a cross‐country sample of European small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). We show consistent evidence that female‐led firms are more likely than their male counterparts to refrain from applying for loans. When they apply, female‐led enterprises do not seem to face gender discrimination from the lender. Interestingly, however, signs of gender bias appear to arise during the upside phase of the economy. Overall, our study provides support for policy actions aimed at reducing the frictions faced by women‐led SMEs when accessing credit markets.     

How loan portfolio diversification affects risk, efficiency and capitalization: A managerial behavior model for Austrian banks

The aim of this paper is to analyze how diversification of banks across size and industry affects risk, cost and profit efficiency, and bank capitalization for large Austrian commercial banks over the years 1997–2003. Employing a unique dataset, provided by the Austrian Central Bank, we test for several different types of managerial hypotheses, formalized according to a modified version of the Berger and DeYoung model [Berger, A.N., DeYoung, R., 1997. Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks. Journal of Banking and Finance 21, 849–870]. We find that, although diversification negatively affects cost efficiency, it increases profit efficiency and reduces banks’ realized risk. Finally, diversification seems to have a positive impact on banks’ capitalization.     

How people perceive the Welfare State: a real-effort experiment

The main activity of a Welfare State is to impose taxes in order to collect money to provide services. In this paper, we want to test subjects’ perception of these two issues in the laboratory. In particular, using a real-effort experiment as a tool, we aim at measuring both the labor supply and the consensus as the level of taxation and the efficiency of the Welfare State vary. Our finding is that subjects significantly react to a change in the tax rate, while the performance of the Welfare State affects subjects’ preferences but not their labor supply.     

Market imperfections,liquidity, and farm household labor allocation: the case of rural South Africa

Asset endowments and market imperfections shape households’ labor allocation decisions and lead to different production regimes within rural farm households in South Africa. This article uses a farm household model to explain the presence of three main household groups determined on the basis of the labor regime adopted: small peasants (working both on and off farm), self‐cultivators (autarkic in labor) and hiring‐in households. A partial generalized ordered logit is used to test the main predictions of the model and a Brant test on threshold constancy is performed to identify the household‐specific factors affecting labor market participation. The results show that liquidity constraints and market imperfections matter in the choice of the labor strategy adopted. Liquidity‐constrained households are more likely to sell labor off farm while access to information facilitates the hiring in of workers.     

INFORMAL CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE: AN ANALYSIS FOR THREE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Changes in formal and informal central bank independence (CBI) in France, Italy and the United Kingdom in the period from the mid-1970s to the 1990s are examined; the major changes occurred in the 1990s, after the disinflations of the 1980s. Broad trends in the informal independence of central banks (CBs), defined as the ability to pursue price stability regardless of the government's preferences, are identified on the basis of a monetary policy narrative and an analysis of a set of qualitative determinants of informal independence. The most important determinants are the social/political acceptance that monetary policy is the sphere of the CB, the existence of anti-inflationary commitments in the form of intermediate targets for monetary policy, the degree of social consensus on the means and ends of macroeconomic policy, and the relative technical expertise of the CB. These broad trends help to explain some of the inflation experience of the 1980s and 1990s, which cannot be understood in terms of changes to formal CBI.