Effect of Consumption Values on Women’s Choice Behavior Toward Organic Foods: The Case of Organic Yogurt in Iran

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of consumption values (i.e., functional value, social value, emotional value, conditional value, epistemic value, environmental value, and health value) on women’s choice behavior toward organic yogurt. Structural equation modeling is used to assess data collected by a questionnaire survey. The results indicate that functional value–quality, functional value–taste, and functional value–price; conditional value; epistemic value; and health value have positive effects on choosing organic yogurt by women, and social value, emotional value, and environmental value have no effects on the subject. Among variables, epistemic value and health value have the highest impact on consumer choice behavior toward organic yogurt. So this study concludes that the main influence factors on choice behavior regarding organic yogurt are epistemic value and health value. In fact, consumers have high knowledge about organic yogurt benefits related to their health.     

Consequential creativity

Creativity is an original cognitive ability and problem solving process which enables individuals to use their intelligence in a way that is unique and directed toward coming up with a product. Architectural education is one of the fields in which human creativity has been exhibited; because, it can be defined as a design study that correlates with other disciplines: social sciences, management, history, operational research, philosophy, graphic design, math and etc. These features which distinguish architecture from other disciplines ascribe different kind of responsibilities for architectural education; since beside technical and professional skills, an architect must have imagination and to be creative at many levels. Thus, this research aims at proving that students can be trained in creative thinking via acquiring specific skills and systematic techniques, which directly acts on design product. The study methodology depends on the concept of experimental research that targets at exposing students to creative problem solving experience via carrying out a creative training course that concerns “Consequential Creativity”. That experiment examined the potentiality of enhancing the students’ ability of viewing problems in non-traditional perspectives that counts on the systematic procedures of problem solving. Tools for assessment before and after training have been implemented. The Experiment findings proved that the students’ creative thinking skill has been clearly improved after attending the course. Therefore, training in creative thinking can be considered as independent courses or within specific architectural curricula.     

Welfare State, Market Imperfections, and International Trade

Within a two-sector-two-country model of trade with aggregate scale economies and unionisation, a more generous welfare state in one country increases welfare in that country and can have positive spillover effects on the other. Furthermore, synchronised expansions of social security are more welfare enhancing than unilateral ones. Our results counter the fears that a race to the bottom in social standards may result from the ‘shrinking-tax-base’ entailed by international capital mobility. While affecting trade patterns and income distribution, capital mobility interacts with welfare state policies in increasing welfare, even when capital flows out of the country that initiates the shock.

Optimal Management of Soil Quality Stocks and Long-Term Consequences of Land Degradation for Smallholder Farmers in Malawi

While soil degradation has long-term consequences, static models which form the bulk of studies on this topic in Africa, do not account for the inter-temporal dimensions of optimal resource management. This paper used an inter-temporal optimisation framework, which considered soil in a time-dependent resource extraction perspective. We have demonstrated that soil degradation is causing an enormous reduction in productive value of smallholder land in Malawi. Current user cost of soil quality among smallholder farmers, which represents annual loss in productive value of land, was estimated to be US$21 per hectare. Based on this value and land area under smallholder agriculture in Malawi, economic costs of soil degradation among smallholder farmers were estimated to amount to 14% of the agricultural GDP for Malawi. Although smallholder farmers’ current practices are sub-optimal to Steady State solutions, they are above static solutions. This demonstrates that smallholder farmers have some private incentives to invest in the soil quality stock. Smallholder farmers internalise some of the dynamic costs of soil degradation under the current practices. However, a sensitivity analysis on a slightly higher discount rate indicates that SS solutions closely resemble the prevailing smallholder farming practices. This suggests that smallholder farmers may be overexploiting soil quality stock because they have a high time preference. That is, they value the current consumption more than their future consumption and wellbeing. High levels of poverty in Malawi and serious lack of viable alternatives to subsistence farming may be influencing such behaviour. Promoting more viable land use alternatives than subsistence farming and formuling policies that help transform smallholder agriculture into a profitable enterprise will not only increase the cost of degrading the soil, but also encourage farmers to invest in the soil quality stock.     

Capital mobility and foreign debt sustainabilty: some evidence from Turkey

This paper address the extent of capital mobility and foreign debt sustainability in Turkey over the 1962–2003 period by examining the relationship between saving and investment, and imports and exports, respectively. The empirical investment is based on cointegration, error correction models, and threshold and momentum threshold autoregressive models. Our findings are consistent with the existence of capital mobility and the ‘Strong’ form of foreign debt sustainability.     

Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment: An analysis of the aggregate demand-side effects for postwar Canada

Most of the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of unemployment insurance (UI) during the last 25 years has focused on the supply-side implications. The object of this article is to argue that much of those discussions over the disincentive effects of UI is misdirected. Our intention is to bring back to the forefront a discussion of the positive macroeconomic role played by UI net injections in stabilizing aggregate demand. Our empirical results using Canadian data for the postwar period support this Keynesian view of the stabilizing effect of UI in contemporary economies.     

The theoretical and empirical evaluation of the third world brain drain to the United States: 1972-1987

"This paper is divided into four sections. Section I deals with theoretical issues behind labor migration in general with emphasis on 'brain drain'. Section II is concerned with an empirical analysis of third world professional immigration into the U.S. for the time period 1972-1987. Section III discusses policy implications to deal with [the] 'brain drain' problem."     

Business Cycle Asymmetries and Nonlinearity in UAE Macroeconomic Time Series

This study investigates the dynamic behaviour of macroeconomic time series variables of the United Arab Emirates. We first examined whether there are non‐Gaussian characteristics associated with the macroeconomic variables of the United Arab Emirates. Through application of the BDS nonlinearity test, our results indicated that there is a substantial nonlinear dependence in the data set for all the variables. We also assessed the asymmetric behaviour of these variables by exploring whether they exhibit two particular forms of asymmetry, which are deepness and steepness asymmetries. These results have shown that there is no empirical evidence of business cycle asymmetry in all the variables at any conventional level of significance in the sample period. Also, through application of further robust testing, our findings indicate the presence of pro‐cyclical asymmetry in some of the variables and at the same time indicate the presence of asymmetries in the volatility.