Food-away-from-home plate waste in China: Preference for variety and quantity

China is observing a rapid increase of food-away-from-home (FAFH) plate waste along with economic growth. Food waste reduces food use efficiency, exerts pressure on environment and resources, and threatens national food security. This study analyzes the impact of consumers’ preference for variety and restaurants’ dish portions on FAFH plate waste using a survey data from 170 restaurants in Beijing and Lhasa. The primary findings are that higher food variety leads to less plate waste and bigger portion size results in more plate waste. We also observe that increases in consumers’ income lead to more plate waste. Moreover, the Chinese Face-culture plays a significant role on consumers’ plate waste. Serving dishes with suitable portions in restaurants should be incentivized to help reduce both the amount and rate of plate waste. Our results can suggest relevant policy tools to nudge people in forming sustainable consumption behavior and provide valuable implications for reducing food waste and improving food security in China.     

UNDERSTANDING PREFERENCE IMPRECISION

The term ‘preference imprecision’ seems to have different meanings to different people. In the literature, one can find references to a number of expressions. For example: vagueness, incompleteness, randomness, unsureness, indecisiveness and thick indifference curves. Some of these are theoretical constructs, some are empirical. The purpose of this paper is to survey the various different approaches and to try to link them together: to see if they are all addressed to the same issue, and to come to some conclusions. In the course of this survey, we report on evidence concerning the existence of preference imprecision, and its impact on theoretical and empirical work.     

信仰的力量:东道国宗教信仰会影响中国OFDI吗？

基于2003-2015年中国对外直接投资流量数据及ARDA宗教数据，构造引力模型实证考察东道国宗教信仰多样性和东道国与中国宗教信仰相似性对中国OFDI的影响。分析结果表明，东道国宗教信仰多样性对中国OFDI有促进效应，但东道国与中国宗教信仰相似性对OFDI没有显著正影响。使用1900年宗教信仰结构匹配的宗教变量及1500年东道国与中国的遗传距离作为工具变量，纠正模型中可能存在的内生性问题后，这一结论依然存在。同时，用控制传导变量及剔除金融危机影响的方法进行稳健性测试的结果也支持这一结论。最后，在进一步的作用机制检验中初步发现，宗教信仰会通过选择偏好效应、信任间性效应和制度介导效应作用于对外直接投资。     

不公平对待对努力水平的影响——基于三阶段锦标模型的研究

行为经济学研究认为,人们在自利偏好之外还存在公平偏好,不公平对待将导致额外效用;而心理学实验又表明,不公平对待会使人们产生相对剥夺感并增加努力成本。基于公平偏好理论及相对剥夺观点,构建了三阶段晋升锦标模型,研究不公平对待对代理人努力水平的影响。结果表明,代理人的努力水平选择取决于对未来的预期,并且工资差距、努力成本、嫉妒和自豪心理以及监管精度都会影响代理人的努力水平。这一结论有利于预测代理人的行为规律,为建立最优激励机制提供更符合现实情况的理论依据。     

不完备偏好理论及其应用综述

本文在不完备偏好理论近期文献的基础上,以联系偏好和行为的一致性条件为主线,阐述了不完备偏好显示理论的最新进展:由Γ-理性化转向Δ-理性化,选择集由消费束转向机会集;分别在确定性和不确定性的经济环境下,回顾了不完备偏好的函数表示理论的发展脉络,即由单维函数转向多维函数;特别是,在不确定性的经济环境下,讨论了两种可能的不完备偏好(口味不决和信念不决)的函数表示理论;整理归纳了不完备偏好理论在行为经济学和博弈论等经济学领域中的若干应用。     

偏好反转对协同知识创新决策的影响

基于协同知识创新决策风险性,引入行为经济学偏好反转理论,从知识积累视角构建偏好反转影响下的知识创新模型。将协同知识创新决策从单纯的选择决策拓展为选择/放弃决策,在不同决策背景下对模型进行演算。结果发现,当协作方对创新资源投入分摊比例较低时,主体对未来收益的不确定性预期较低,而在偏好反转的影响下,放弃决策对预期收益的退出定价可能较高,从而使背离放弃决策相比进入选择决策更有利于协同创新。研究结论解释了当前较多的协同知识创新联盟尽管没有实现科技政策调整的预期效果,但未大规模解体且力趋稳定合作的现象。     

风险偏好视角下工程项目风险分担研究

合理的风险分担机制能够提高工程项目管理绩效,然而,目前的风险分担机制主要以“理性人”为假设,忽略了对于项目参与方风险偏好的关注。旨在建立嵌入合同双方风险偏好的风险分担决策方法,通过文献研究,构建了风险分担评价指标体系,并结合模糊集理论和TOPSIS技术,设计了风险分担定量模型。在该方法中,承包商风险偏好包含在评价指标体系中,业主风险偏好通过派生的三角模糊数予以表示。最后,通过实证案例对该方法的实用性和有效性进行了验证,研究成果为实现工程项目合理风险分担提供了理论支持。     

信贷市场存在行业歧视吗——以P2P网络借贷为例的研究

P2P网络借贷是互联网金融的主要业务模式之一,也是一种新型的信贷模式。不同于传统信贷模式,P2P网络借贷依托互联网技术撮合借贷双方直接完成信用交易,无须传统金融中介参与。借助人人贷平台的大数据优势,本文研究发现:中国P2P网络借贷市场存在行业偏好,具体表现为工作行业会对借款的满标率、成功率产生显著影响;进一步研究发现,该偏好其实是一种行业歧视,投资者以出借资金安全性或者损失投资预期收益为代价而选择投资于违约风险高的部分行业的借款人,即使在IT行业、金融/法律行业工作的借款人可以显著地提高投资人的福利,但其资金可得性并没有相应的提高;从解决机制来看,借款人完成工作认证、提高信息质量可以降低行业偏好,但不能消除行业歧视。     

What is a commodity? Two axiomatic answers

Summary. We identify conditions under which preferences over subsets of a consumption world can be reduced to preferences over bundles of "commodities". We distinguish ordinal bundles, whose coordinates are defined up to monotone transformations, from cardinal bundles, whose coordinates are defined up to positive linear transformations.Received: 27 March 2002, Revised: 17 March 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D11.I am grateful to S. Barberá, C. Chambers, K. Nehring, and O. Sprumont for stimulating conversations and useful remarks. I also thank a referee for helpful comments, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for support.     

Experimental Strategies for Preference Information Acquisition: A Lattice Path Treatment

This paper investigates strategies for the acquisition of consumer preference information by a market researcher. Such preference information is obtained by the market researcher through an experimental process that entails polling consumers about their preference profiles with a view to completely specifying the preference order. In this paper, we limit the focus to one or two consumers.In this environment, the experiments are pairwise comparisons between resource bundles about which there is no a-priori preference information. Each such experiment can have three possible signals: one bundle is more preferred, indifferent, or less preferred over another. Choice of an experiment in the experimental sequence is important because different choices result in different average amounts of information.For the analysis the paper establishes a link between preference theory and lattice path counting. Combinatorial arguments that allow the market researcher to calculate quantities of information at the start of the information acquisition process are presented. A recursion for finding the impact of choosing different experiments on the average values of information gain is constructed. The paper studies how the experiments chosen subsequently can affect the elimination of other experiments from the experimental set and thus have an effect on the efficiency of information acquisition. The measures derived could be used by the market researcher as a benchmark with which to compare information gathering strategies.