Understanding beliefs and concerns towards palm oil: Empirical evidence and policy implications

Over the last years palm oil has become a controversial product, due to its alleged harmful environmental and health effects. As a consequence, many food companies have taken concrete actions for meeting growing concerns. In this respect, a field survey was carried out amongst a sample of 607 Italian respondents, in order to highlight the potential effect of consumers’ attitudes towards health, social and environmental worries referred to palm oil consumption. Individual responses were statistically processed by means of a mixture model which allows for the detection of agreement and heterogeneity among respondents with respect to a given item. The results of this study suggest that respondents are worried for the current discussion on palm oil issues. This preoccupation affects both decision of purchasing and interest in further accurate knowledge. Overall, the consumer envisioned by the present study gives some hope on the effectiveness of consumer social responsibility in helping tackle food system sustainability concerns.     

A simple theory and evidence on the determinants of firm R&D

This paper derives a simple, but informative, model of firm R&D to figure out key factors that determine firm R&D effort. The model suggests a demand-pull, technology-push theory of R&D by showing that a firm's profit-maximizing R&D expenditure is determined jointly by both demand-side factors and technology-side factors. The former includes demand size (firm sales) and consumer preference over quality and price and the latter includes R&D cost structure or the production-cost effect of product R&D and firm-specific technological competence. In addition, the model shows that other things being equal, the stock of exogenous technological knowledge, including the firm's previously accumulated technological knowledge, relevant to current R&D which is negatively related with current R&D effort. An empirical analysis of firm R&D intensities and technological capabilities of more than 1600 firms in nine industries across six countries provides supportive evidence for the theory. Further, the theory implies that R&D intensity or the R&D-to-sales ratio is independent of firm size unless firm size affects technological competence and that given consumer preference and R&D cost structure facing all firms in the same industry, the distribution of firm-specific technological competence among firms determines the distribution of firm R&D intensities within the industry.     

Combining attitudinal statements with choice experiments to analyze preference heterogeneity for functional dairy products

In this article, we employ a discrete choice experiment to examine preferences for functional dairy product attributes and willingness-to-pay estimates for consumers in Germany. We estimate preference heterogeneity by linking stated preference choice data not only to socioeconomic characteristics but also to attitudinal statements in a latent class framework. The empirical results indicate the existence of class-specific preference heterogeneity based on the consumers’ attitude towards functional foods, emphasizing the importance of attitudinal data in explaining consumers’ choice behavior. Our estimates demonstrate that within a class, consumers’ preferences are in accordance with their responses to attitudinal statements, that is functional food skeptics prefer non-functional dairy products, while functional food advocates have a negative preference for non-functional dairy products. The findings also show that all consumers place high value on dairy products enriched with known functional ingredients such as omega-3 fatty acids.     

A dynamic decision support system for evaluating peer-to-peer rental accommodations in the sharing economy

Accommodation accounts for one of the biggest expenses while traveling, and deciding where to stay is often confusing and time-consuming. Fortunately, travelers have more options than ever before because of the substantial growth of the peer-to-peer (P2P) short-term rentals in the sharing economy. Designing a user-friendly system that considers travelers’ preferences in choosing the right accommodation can enhance customer satisfaction and increase profitability. We propose a dynamic decision support system based on the theory of multi-criteria decision making to assist travelers in personalizing their preferences and finding quality accommodations in the dominant P2P market that aligns with those preferences. We use the fuzzy best-worst method to measure the intensity of the user’s preferences and the fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) to score and evaluate alternative P2P rental properties. We present a case study in the P2P rental accommodations industry to demonstrate the applicability of the method proposed in this study.     

Passengers' airport choice and airports' catchment area analysis in cross-border Upper Adriatic multi-airport region

Although much research has been performed on passengers' origin airport choice, there is little research on airports' catchment area size and even less on airports' catchment areas in cross-border regions. This paper addresses passengers' airport choice and analyzes airports' catchment area size and its homogeneity in the Upper Adriatic region. Using the results of passengers' survey at three regional airports (Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU), Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE) and Trieste Pietro Savorgnan di Brazza Airport (TRS)) we have estimated the airports' catchment areas and airports market shares therein using multinomial logit (MNL) model structure. To additionally explore the passengers' airport choice behavior considering the different sensitivity across travellers to regional, demographic and airports attributes and account for preference heterogeneity in airport choice a mixed logit model was used. The results indicated that the three airports have relatively small core catchment areas and that the market share rapidly decreases with the increasing access time to airport. Partially, the results reinforced earlier findings showing that access time to airport is the most important determinant in airport choice for all segments (business/leisure and cross-border/domestic), however the sensitivity to access time is more pronounced in business and domestic group. Additionally, the results indicated pronounced loyalty to domestic airports and generally low importance of ticket prices, and show that in market conditions where all airports in the region have a low-cost carrier (LCC) the effect of LCC on airport choice is limited. Finally, the results indicated that the borders might have an influence on airport choice and that overall, in the cross-border regions the passengers’ airport choice process is even more complex than in non cross-border regions.     

中国地方政府的产业偏好与服务业增长

作为现阶段中国经济政策的执行者和基层市场体系的维护者,地方政府为何会对辖区内的工业和服务业展现不同的偏好?遵循财政收入和政治收益两条线索,我们描述比较了省级层面二、三产业的增长特征,并将该特征纳入一个约束下的双目标模型,模拟地方政府在现行政绩考核体系激励下的策略行为。我们发现,发展服务业耗费执政资源更多、见效更慢,同时回报更低,而现行服务业指标并不能产生合意的额外激励,因而服务业对大多数地方政府缺乏吸引力。以各省"十五"规划中提取的信息为基础进行实证检验,结果显示了地方政府偏好对辖区内服务业增长的影响及其在年度间的分布变动。     

居民风险偏好与中国货币政策的宏观经济效应——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

当前,我国宏观经济形势复杂多变,货币政策实施效果的影响因素随之呈现多样化特征。在此背景下,本文试图以风险偏好为研究视角,对我国居民风险偏好水平变动与货币政策宏观经济效应之间的关系进行分析。本文以标准新凯恩斯模型为基础,构造符合我国宏观经济现实特征的DSGE(动态随机一般均衡)模型,并对转型时期的最优混合型货币政策规则进行研究;为进一步强调货币在中国宏观经济波动中所扮演的重要角色,模型中引入消费和实际货币余额不可分的跨期效用函数形式。研究结果表明:(1)包含名义货币增长的混合型泰勒规则拟合我国转型时期的货币政策规则效果最佳,因此货币供应量仍是重要的政策工具;(2)与可分性模型相比,不可分模型拟合我国宏观经济现实特征的效果更优。在不可分效用函数下,与货币供应量相关的实际货币余额将影响经济的产出缺口和通货膨胀,使得居民风险偏好成为决定货币政策效果的重要因素。具体而言,当居民风险偏好水平上升时,货币政策对我国宏观经济波动的影响随之增强。因此,在选择货币政策实施时点上,应充分考虑市场中的风险偏好情况,从而更好地发挥货币政策调控宏观经济的职能。     

品牌原产地困惑对于消费者喜爱与购买本土品牌和境外品牌的影响

以消费者行为理论和品牌原产地效应的研究文献为基础，通过对调查数据进行统计分析，本文提出与检验了品牌原产地困惑对于中国消费者喜爱与购买本土品牌和境外品牌的影响作用。结论如下：第一，在中国现有环境下，消费者越是误认为一个本土品牌是境外品牌，就倾向于越喜欢这个品牌；越是误认为一个境外品牌是本土品牌，就倾向于越不喜欢这个品牌。第二，本土品牌知名度对于本土品牌原产地困惑和消费者喜好本土品牌之间的正相关关系有负向的调节作用；不过，境外品牌知名度的调节作用则不明显。第三，品牌原产地困惑对于中国消费者购买本土品牌有负向影响，对中国消费者购买境外品牌则无显著影响。