Private labels and public quality standards: How can consumer trust be restored after the mad cow crisis?

In those sectors faced with questions of food safety (meat, fruit, vegetables), new private labels have been set up in Europe in order to restore consumer trust. In this paper, we perform a theoretical analysis of these private labels. We propose an original model of vertical relationships between producers and retailers which takes into account two supply sources through (i) a competitive spot market on which the retailers buy a minimum quality standard product and (ii) supply contracts aimed at marketing higher quality private labels. We study how producers and retailers could cooperate in setting up these new labels. From a public point of view, we show the complementarity of a moderate increase in public quality standards and the creation of these new private labels. JEL Classification L22. L23. Q13. Q18     

Subjective food-risk judgements in tourists

Sources of risk in contemporary tourism vary over a long array of phenomena ranging from the risk of terror attacks to risks related to food and consumption. Currently, alleged food-risk sources such as Creutzfeldt–Jacobs Disease (CJD; commonly known as “Mad Cow Disease”), Salmonella, Scrapie disease and even genetically modified food are salient in mass media.In the present study, we addressed the pervasiveness of tourists’ judgements of such food-related risks. As part of a larger study, some 1880 individual tourists (from 48 different nations) answered a questionnaire pertaining to food-risk issues. Based on the logics of the availability heuristic, we expected that food risks would be judged to be lower in one's own home country than abroad. We also expected that people would rate various sources for food risk differently when rating food risks at home and abroad.The results indicate that risks linked to food are indeed perceived to be higher abroad than at home, regardless of where the respondents’ homes are, although attributions of risk to the various risk sources seem to vary between at home and abroad. The results also show a significant, but moderate correlation between travel experience and food-risk judgements abroad and at home. The results also indicate cultural differences in risk judgements concerning food.     

发射分集系统在空间相关莱斯快衰落信道下的性能

我国加入WTO以后,对于上海的发展是一个千栽难逢的机遇,同时也给上海的发展带来新的挑战。本文通过详实的资料分析了上海经济发展的现状和制约上海进一步发展的问题,并运用市场营销新理论,提出构建上海现代化大都市的营销战略。     

The effect of concentration and market power on food prices: evidence from Finland

This research examines empirically the relationship between economies of scale, concentration, and market power in food retailing. With unique, local market data available Finland, the analysis could investigate the impact of both local concentration and industry-wide concentration (which can be interpreted as multimarket contact) are taken into account in the evaluation of grocery retail competitiveness. The results show that the main factor affecting market power is the size of the retail firm. Larger share grocery retailers, for both the local and the national markets, carried higher mark-ups. At the same time, no firm-level scale economies were found from these larger firms. I conclude from these findings that the main purpose of large grocery retail mergers is to gain market power not efficiency.     

基于CP分解的MIMO-OFDM系统接收信号盲检测

多输入多输出-正交频分复用（MIMO-OFDM）无线通信系统中接收信号从空间、时间、频率的维度形成多因素的阵列信号,传统的矢量或者矩阵代数的建模方法在处理多因素信号问题上显得不足,无法利用多因素间的关系,而张量分析在解决多维阵列信号处理的问题上具有优势。针对MIMO无线通信系统,结合OFDM技术,研究了张量信号的建模及分解方法,并充分利用张量信号的分解唯一性提高无线接收信号的检测能力。提出了基于CP（CANDECOMP/PARAFAC）张量分解方法对未知信道状态（CSI）的MIMO-OFDM系统进行接收端的张量信号建模和盲检测,并通过仿真分析验证了模型的可行性。仿真结果表明,在接收天线数目大于发送天线数目且各径信道独立情况下,基于CP分解的接收信号盲检测算法在误码率为10-4时,随着接收天线数目增加,信噪比可获得约5 dB的增益。     

具有天线选择与中继选择的空间调制技术

针对空间调制（SM）技术存在的缺欠,提出了具有天线选择和中继选择的空间调制系统方案。首先在多输入多输出(MIMO)信道模型下,通过对发送端天线选择,将拥有最佳信道状态的天线选出进行SM,打破SM技术对发送端天线数的限制,并提升采用高阶调制的SM分集性能。然后进一步将此思想引入协作通信网络,结合传感器网络的分级观念,提出采用中继选择和空间调制的中继传输协议,并通过仿真观察系统分集性能的改善。仿真结果表明,上述中继传输协议不仅能提升系统性能,而且使系统配置更加灵活。     

Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity

This study considers the impact of diversification in types of technological alliances, resulting in alliance portfolio diversity, on various dimensions of a firm's performance, as they relate to exploration and exploitation. Using a large panel of innovative firms in the Netherlands, this study shows that partner type diversity in a firm's alliance portfolio has an inverted U-shaped relationship with productivity and radical innovative performance and a positive relationship with incremental innovative performance. Moreover, the results suggest that a lower level of diversity is needed to achieve an optimal level of productivity compared to radical innovative performance, whereas for incremental innovative performance a higher level of portfolio diversity appears to give the best performance.     

Where do international board members come from? Country-level antecedents of international board member selection in European boards

In this paper, it is argued that boards internationalize by recruiting international directors in order to increase companies’ performance. However, increasing nationality diversity on a board can be costly considering that it potentially creates cooperative problems on a board due to fault-lines and separation processes. As a result, boards will prefer international candidates who are more similar to themselves on a variety of ‘distances’. Based on data collected regarding 5683 board members of 361 companies from 15 countries in 2005–2007, we discover that the greater the distance (cultural, institutional and geographical) between the candidates’ and the companies’ country-of-origin, the lower the fraction of board members of that nationality on boards. Subsequently, it is argued that historical ties between countries play a ‘distance compressing’ role and partially compensate for the effects of distance. A colonial tie between countries will make recruitment of these particular nationalities more likely than others.     

公司违规与审计收费：违规公告异质性和作用机制

以审计定价模型为切入视角,探讨了违规公告内容与审计收费的关系,并进一步剖析违规诱增审计收费的作用机制。研究发现：违规公告异质性内容会对审计收费产生差异化影响,违规类型严重性和多样性、处罚措施严厉性均会显著诱增审计收费,而处罚措施多样性不会显著提高审计收费。进一步地,公司违规通过“审计成本”和“风险溢价”两条平行中介路径来诱增审计收费,且“审计成本”这条路径会受到事务所规模、任期长短、是否更换等变量的显著调节。研究说明违规公告文本内容能协助审计师评估风险,也表明不同情境下违规对审计收费的作用机理存在差异性。     

Demand for meat and dairy products by Turkish households: a Bayesian censored system approach

We extend the Tobit (censored) linear equation system procedure to utility‐theoretic demand functions, along with a mapping mechanism to impose the adding‐up restriction implied by consumer utility maximization theory—a theoretical restriction very often ignored in previous empirical studies with censored demand systems. In this context, the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure is applied to the censored linear approximate almost ideal demand system (LAIDS) for 12 food products, using data from the Turkish Household Expenditure Survey. All own‐price elasticities are negative and expenditure elasticities positive. Uncompensated own‐price elasticities for rural households are generally much higher than those for their urban peers, though demand for most food products are own‐price elastic for both types of households. The differential patterns in demand elasticities between urban and rural households become even more evident (almost twice) as relatively more expensive foodstuffs are consumed, showing that accessibilities to alternative products have made rural Turkish households more cognizant toward price changes in foods. Household characteristics play a key role in food expenditures, notably so in urban areas, and regional and seasonal differences are also present.