Consumer Attitudes Toward and Preferences for Food Standards of Identity

Abstract

Federal food standards of identity protect consumers from nutritional and economic fraud by establishing standardized names and characteristics for some products. Standards have been criticized for a variety of reasons, raising the possibility that standards may be harmful to the consumers' interests that they are designed to protect. The authors conducted focus groups to collect information on consumers' attitudes toward food standards and their perceived usefulness. Many participants believed that standards are useful and deemed standards to be more important for some types of products than others. Regulators can use the study findings to guide policy decisions on food standards.     

Equilibria in large economies with a separable Banach commodity space and non-ordered preferences

The purpose of this paper is to provide an existence result of equilibria for economies with a measure space of agents, a non-trivial production sector and an infinite dimensional commodity space. The commodity space is modeled by an ordered separable Banach space whose positive cone has a non-empty interior. The discretization approach proposed in this paper, allows us to extend the existence results in Khan and Yannelis [Equilibrium in markets with a continuum of agents and commodities. In: Khan, M.A., Yannelis, N.C. (Eds.), Equilibrium Theory in Infinite Dimensional Spaces. Springer, Berlin, 1991] and Podczeck [Economic Theory 9 (1997) 585] to economies with a non-trivial production sector and with possibly non-ordered but convex preferences as well as partially ordered (possibly incomplete) but non-convex preferences.     

物价上涨形势下农民与中间商收益博弈的讨论

本文针对当前物价持续强势上涨的现象,简短剖析了物价的上涨态势。同时利用博弈理论,建立博弈模型,并从实际与理论出发,分析、比较了中间商与农民在该过程中的得利情况。同时对如何抑制物价上涨和促进农民增收问题提出了相关建议。     

Outdoor recreation participation and views on resource development and preservation

Abstract

Views on the preservation of resources versus their development for recreation are compared among participants in three types of outdoor recreation: “appreciative”; activities (cross‐country skiing, hiking, and canoeing); “consumptive”; activities (fishing and hunting); and “mechanized”; activities (motorboating, snowmo‐biling, and trail biking). The results from a 1984 questionnaire survey conducted in Edmonton and Calgary, Canada, indicate a stronger preservationist orientation among participants in appreciative activities, whereas (with the exception of hunters) participants in consumptive and mechanized activities hold stronger pro‐development views. These differences cannot be attributed to simultaneous variations in socioeco‐nomic characteristics or environmental attitudes among the recreational groups. The findings suggest that differences in outdoor recreational activity preferences represent an important source of variation in views about appropriate levels of preservation versus development of Alberta's natural and wildernesss resources.     

十二五期间安徽农民增收的影响因素与对策建议

文章针对具有典型中部欠发达地区特征的安徽省进行实地调查,研究显示：处于社会转型期的中国农民阶级内部分化结构出现了新特点,收入来源发生了剧变。农民的工资性收入、家庭经营性收入、财产性收入和转移性收入都不断增加,而且收入结构逐渐优化。十二五期间,农民收入增长持续受到经济相对不发达、农业主产区、农民工大量输出等区域性特殊因素制约,通过加快农村劳动力流动、发展县域经济、增强城市辐射力、加大农村公共服务投入、确立农民在产业化经营中的主体地位、积极引导并扶持农民工返乡创业与就业等一系列关键措施可能实现增收目标,以确保小康社会的全面建成。     

Revealed preferences for portfolio selection – does skewness matter?

In this article, we consider the portfolio selection problem as a Bayesian decision problem. We compare the traditional mean–variance and mean–variance–skewness efficient portfolios. We develop bi-level programming problem to investigate the market’s preference for risk by using observed (market) weights. Numerical experiments are conducted on a portfolio formed by the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Numerical results show that the market’s preferences are better explained when skewness is included.     

林地流转中不同类型农户决策行为博弈分析

研究目的:对林地流转中不同类型农户的林地流转决策行为进行博弈分析。研究方法:以博弈论为分析工具,建立林地流转中双方利益博弈模型的分析框架,并基于农户总预期收益函数构建林地流转双方决策行为博弈模型,对不同类型农户的林地流转决策行为进行博弈分析。研究结果:当同时存在一组满足林地流入方和林地流出方林业经营收益最大的劳动、资金和林地投入时,双方共同认可的流转租金价格为流转双方达成博弈的均衡解,即林地流入方和林地流出方实现(流转,流转)的策略,流转行为得以发生。研究结论:现实中通常会存在一些因素制约林地流转中均衡策略的选择,政府等有关部门应针对不均衡因素制定相应政策措施,以使林地流转均衡策略得以发生,达到促进林地流转的目的。     

缩小贫富差距的科学性和现实性评估

十二五时期,需要正确看待、评估贫富差距问题,全面把握贫富差距的成因。缩小贫富差距,应推进国民收入初次、二次、三次分配制度建设,建立完善的居民收入与消费统计制度。缩小贫富差距,关键在于调高保低。在调高保低的过程中,应准确把握两个关键问题:取缔非法收入促进社会公平正义,努力提高农村居民劳动收入水平。