A Green Picture is Worth A Thousand Words?: Effects of Visual and Textual Environmental Appeals in Advertising and the Moderating Role of Product Involvement

This study examined the main effects and interaction effects of textual environmental claims and green visuals on attitude-toward-the-ad (A_ad), attitude-toward-the-brand (A_b), purchase intention (PI), and green brand associations. In general, the use of textual environmental claims and green visuals lead to more positive advertising responses and more favorable perception of the brand's environmental effort. Textual environmental claims had stronger impact, but if no textual information was available, the use of green visuals could also generate positive perception of the brand's environmental effort. In addition, when textual claims or green visuals are present, participants perceived high involvement products as more environmentally friendly than low involvement products.     

The Design of GSS-Enabled Interventions: A Habermasian Perspective

This article frames GSS-enabled interventions as electronically supported discourses, designed and evaluated against a gold standard of ideal speech in a perfect communication environment. The objectives are, firstly, to develop a model of GSS-enabled interventions based on Habermas' theory of communicative action, and secondly, to apply the model as a problem-structuring device to the conceptual problem of designing the strategic evaluation of a comprehensive urban plan. The model, known as the VC (validity claims) Model, provides separate evaluative criteria for personal, social and technical aspects. The criteria for successful GSS-enabled interventions may be summarized as personal commitment (validated by personal truthfulness or sincerity), to a social consensus (validated by rightness), for informed action (validated by objective truth). Detailed criteria (viz., goal, strategy, procedure, issues, problems) are developed for each type of validity claim and matched to the technologies available. The result is a detailed brief illustrating the design of a GSS-enabled strategic urban planning intervention, including a sample agenda for the GSS-supported meeting and the GSS tools that will be employed.     

A two-account model of pension saving contracts

Saving contracts studied in the literature and available on the pension market share certain characteristics. An overview implies a unified formalization that exposes, at the same time, the common characteristics and the important differences. This article presents such a formalization in terms of two interacting accounts and specifies a series of examples from the literature and the market. We solve the valuation problem by derivation of a partial difference-differential equation and implementation of a numerical finite difference procedure. Illustrations are included.     

Quantifying the economic impact of a digital self-care behavioral health platform on Missouri Medicaid expenditures

Abstract

Aim: The primary objective of this study is to estimate the economic benefits relative to return on investment (ROI) of a state-wide initiative to integrate digital behavioral health (BH) self-care into the community BH system.

Methods: The observational study reviewed claims data of 799 people who registered with the digital tool (myStrength) and 715 matched control study participants. The control group was formed via coarsened exact match with blocking variables, including presence on the claims file, volume of health care utilization, participation in a medical health home, BH diagnosis and volume of psychotherapy claims. The primary study analysis of cost differences for the BH self-care tool group versus the control group were calculated by cost setting and the ROI of the BH self-care tool was estimated. Cost settings assessed include inpatient, emergency services, general and psychiatric outpatient, and outpatient psychotherapy.

Results: An incremental annual difference in difference reduction of $382 per user was observed over the 11 month study period in the self-care tool group. Sensitivity analysis indicated an ROI of between 142% and 695%.

Conclusions: Augmenting BH offerings to include digital BH self-care tools appears to generate positive ROI via reduced total cost of care.     

Bounds on Derivative Prices in an Intertemporal Setting with Proportional Transaction Costs and Multiple Securities

The observed discrepancies of derivative prices from their theoretical, arbitrage-free values are examined in the presence of transaction costs. Analytic upper and lower bounds on the reservation write and purchase prices, respectively, are obtained when an investor's preferences exhibit constant relative risk aversion between zero and one. The economy consists of multiple primary securities with stationary returns, a constant rate of interest, and any number of American or European derivatives with, possibly, path-dependent arbitrary payoffs.     

Water rights for variable supplies*

The relative merits of different systems of property rights to allocate water among different extractive uses are evaluated for the case where variability of supply is important. Three systems of property rights are considered. In the first, variable supply is dealt with through the use of water entitlements defined as shares of the total quantity available. In the second, there are two types of water entitlements, one for water with a high security of supply and the other a lower security right for the residual supply. The third is a system of entitlements specified as state‐contingent claims. With zero transaction costs, all systems are efficient. In the realistic situation where transaction costs matter, the system based on state‐contingent claims is globally optimal, and the system with high‐security and lower security entitlements is preferable to the system with share entitlements.     

Meat labels: consumer attitude and meat consumption pattern

This paper addressed consumers’ attitude towards food labels and the influence of different aspects of meat labels on beef, poultry and seafood consumption using data from a national survey in the USA. Approximately 70% of the respondents reported that food labels helped in the purchases of beef and other meat products. While 50% thought that the present level of information on meat labels was about right, about 30% thought that it was insufficient. Similarly, 80, 81, 60, and 80% of the respondents thought that it was very important that meat labels contain information regarding nutrition, ingredients, health claim, and production process respectively. Those respondents who thought that nutrition and ingredient information on food labels were very important also thought that meat labels helped them select beef and other meat products. Consumer preferences for nutrition and ingredient information on food labels were positively related with meat consumption frequency.     

Short‐term impact of a voluntary health intervention on overall vs. preventive healthcare consumption

Healthtrac Rewards is a US‐based, workplace wellness intervention promoting healthy behaviour through voluntary self‐reporting of participants' dietary habits, physical activity and medical concerns. Monthly financial incentives encourage either primary participation or secondary participation requiring additional interaction with Healthtrac personnel. Using data from 17 533 eligible employees, the purpose of the study was to determine whether Healthtrac participants consumed fewer healthcare services, as measured by 2004 medical claim costs or numbers of procedures, relative to non‐participants. High‐cost individuals tended to self‐select into the programme. Costs were 22–27% greater among participants after controlling for other factors. Participants consumed more preventive care, however, which was correlated with reduced future procedures. The secondary intervention was more effective than the primary intervention, suggesting a priority on increasing intensity of involvement vs. basic enrolment.     

农村经济合作组织对推动新农村建设研究

本文通过对新农村建设的分析,指出农业市场化、产业化是新农村建设的关键,由此提出农村经济合作组织发展的重要性。接着从农村经济合作组织对新农村建设的可行性、必要性角度进行论证,进一步明确农村经济合作组织对新农村建设的重要意义。最后对农村经济合作组织运行的条件进行分析。     

Risk processes analyzed as fluid queues

This paper presents the Laplace transform of the time until ruin for a fairly general risk model. The model includes both the classical and most Sparre-Andersen risk models with phase-distributed claim amounts as special cases. It also allows for correlated arrival processes, and claim sizes that depend upon environmental factors such as periods of contagion. The paper exploits the relationship between the surplus process and fluid queues, where a number of recent developments have provided the basis for our analysis.