Knowledge of iron nutrition by university students in Japan,Korea, Thailand and Indonesia

Current advances in iron nutrition are remarkable. This study was carried out to determine the level of knowledge among the university and college students in Japan, Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Although about 90% of the students participating in the study knew that iron deficiency causes anaemia, they have poor overall knowledge about iron nutrition. More Korean students believed that milk and its products are a good source of iron and the promoter for its absorption. This may be attributed to misunderstandings engendered by the mass media. Iron nutrition education in home economics classes at primary and junior high schools is important, and home economics teachers in South-east Asia must emphasize this importance.     

EFFECTS OF ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION WITHIN A FIRM ON OLIGOPOLISTIC MARKET OUTCOMES

I analyze the implications of the Laffont–Tirole type agency problems on oligopolistic market outcomes. In the model, a firm's marginal cost is decreasing in managerial effort and is subject to an additive shock. Both managerial effort and the realization of the shock are a manager's private information. A firm first offers a menu of contract to its manager, and then competes in the product market. As in the model of single principal and single agent, the incentive contracts implement efforts that are distorted downward relative to full information. In this model, with multiple agency relationships, an additional source for upward distortion of effort emerges as a result of the interaction in the product market. The results are robust to whether firms compete in price or quantity.